Nick's Blog

Kirkland, WA can fit in my iPad

2012-01-30T17:55:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago I posted the following status update on facebook timeline: "The ability for a song to be a time machine is my religion", and the notion has been sticking with me for a few weeks, pretty hard.

During a particularly magical weekend that we all have from time to time a few years ago during a relatively magical summer, I woke up from a great sleep and asked my friend a simple question - his answer was just as simple, but was pretty inspiring as well. He and I chat, that's what we do, so I knew exactly what to ask:

Me: "Good morning...what do you want to talk about?"

Him: "Hydrogen"

That was all. I erupted in laughter. The man knew he wanted to talk to Hydrogen. Who knows what they want to talk about? Well, I do, now. I want to talk about Time, and my relationship with Time, and not a fear of it, not a sadness that we all feel when we realize we are old and awful and gross, but more about it's power and ability to morph and shapeshift.

I think of something like Facebook and what they are doing with Timeline, and they are not doing the idea of making your life a digital journal justice, and hopefully someday someone will get it right...but even the way they formulate time on the page - with a linear bar running vertically, implying that your life is just a dot here and a dot there - a sequential collection of nonsense that somehow has added up to make you, you...

That has just started to irk me. I think of Time now more like a volcano. I was watching lava erupt on TV the other day and it was mind blowing how it looks like its moving in slow motion, but its not, its just heavy and thick, and it disappears into itself and piles itself into a shape only to be another shape a few minutes later. That's how I feel about time, and how I feel we interact with time.

Sure, bits are linear, we have developed clocks and calendars and ways to count time, but what we never figured out was how to account for those moments in your life, in all of our everyday lives, where we absolutely are emotionally transported back to a different moment, in our lives. I was always astonished by those glimpses into our past, mostly because of how real they feel...then I realized that I was thinking of it incorrectly. If I was looking at it like Facebook looks at it, it is linear, and those moments when we feel the past are just a little mindgame, but that cannot be right.

I was doing some work at home and I put on Oasis' Be Here Now, the band's follow up to their mega hit and Fisher Life Changing album, Morning Glory. I can reach back and put together the details of purchasing this album, and I can picture the Tower Records in Boston, and even put some images in my brain of what that day was like and who I was with, but then when I heard the first few notes, my brain wasn't playing a trick, it was talking to me, engaging me in a conversation, allowing me to actually feel the past.

I immediately was brought to Kirkland, WA, where my parents lived for about a year, and where I went with Trav the day after I bought this album. At the moment when I did the lava meld back to '97 I wasn't picturing a record store, or the weather, or how Seattle smelled... I can find all that in my brain, but the voyage was more emotional, and more about me feeling the feeling of '97.

Music is continually doing this to me, and I can't tell when its going to happen, and I can't predict it, but it's doing it, continuously, persistently, and without vengeance. It isn't always awesome, I see a smile on TV and I'm shifted immediately back to painful memories of a broken heart - or I'm watching football highlights and the sight Steve Young's #8 jersey makes me feel like I felt at Keri's party the night the 49ers beat the Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game...and the night my Grandmother passed away. That's not linear, that's the opposite. It's a welcomed kick in the pants.

I'm in the process right now of taking some mix tapes Luke made for me in High School and College and putting them into MP3 format. I could just go online, try to buy the individual songs, and try to piece them back together, but the authenticity of the tapes is what I'm looking forward to.

I can't wait until one morning when I hit play on the iPod while I am driving in my car on Route 2 heading to my job, feeling like a 34 year old that stinks at sports now and can't remember where his car keys are...and instantly feel like the 17 year old kid who at at Pizza Hut & Uno's every other night with a collection of amazing friends all because of a song. I have a lot to be grateful for now, and I'm all for it, but the past is as much a part of me as the present, and I love how present it always is.

2012 NBA Predictions

2011-12-26T22:50:00.001-05:00

Eastern Conference:

Miami (Southeast Champ) - With the addition of Battier, I don't see how they don't run the table in the East. By "Run The Table" I literally mean a 3 or 4 loss season against the Eastern conference.
Chicago (Central Champ) - Record-wise, they will be right up there with Miami, and I think the Eastern Conference Finals is such a lock that it's silly.
Orlando - I still think Dwight is a complete buffoon, and I still don't like the way they play basketball. I still think B. Bass is a better player than big baby, and I still think Turkoglu is completely horrendous defensively. But I look at the league and I don't see how they don't finish above the 5 teams below.
New York (Atlantic Champ) - This will be down to the wire, and I think the C's will give them a run for their money, but they just flat out have put the pieces together. Enough pieces to beat Boston, regularly, at least.
Indiana - I'm starting to think that the Pacers can finish in the top 4 - and they might be better than the Knicks, but NBA Rules say the Knicks need to be seeded in the top 4 as Division Champs. Granger, West, Hansborough...I love the roster and I love this team
Boston - The Jeff Green injury just killed this team from a roster standpoint, and while I think they are talented, athletic, and skilled, I believe their age is going to hurt them when looking at the athleticism of the NBA.
Philadelphia - They are the 8 seed if Jrue Holiday doesn't play like an All-Star, and even if he does they may not be.
Atlanta - Most likely I'm wrong, the Hawks are probably better than this, but they still continue to be such idiots, and they let Crawford go, who at least provided something. Josh Smith, as a team leader, is a recipe for disaster. This is more of an "I hope" pick, b/c I hope the Pacers are good, and I really hope the Celtics don't finish worse than 6th.

Western Conference:

Oklahoma City (Northwest Champs) - I think its finally the year they put together the run. Last season was somewhat ruined by the brain fart of Russell Westbrook - and his thinking he was the franchise. I think cooler heads have prevailed, everyone knows what is at stake, and guys like Ibaka are still getting better, Perk losing lbs help, and I just think its time.
Denver - Ty Lawson & Andre Miller make a great backcourt, and they got so much going on on the frontcourt with Nene, who is better than ever. They are not really all that fun to watch, but they are strong.
Los Angeles Lakers (Pacific Champs) - I don't have it in my heart to vote against Kobe. I don't like him personally, but my feeling about a true champion and fighter is to force them to show me they can't cut it anymore. I still think they can cut it. Kobe + Gasol is damned good.
San Antonio Spurs (Southwest Champs) - This team is so boring it's painful, but like Kobe I don't think Duncan is done, and Parker/Ginobili are still Parker/Ginobili.
Dallas - Dirk makes them a #5 seed, insert basically any other All-Star Power Forward and I don't even think they make the playoffs.
Los Angeles Clippers - Everyone calm down. Jordan can't hit a free throw and their bench stinks. Shut it.
Memphis - They were fun to watch last year, weren't they? Unfortunately, I don't think they have the mental toughness to win more than 35 games in a short season.
Minnesota - They are my Pacers of the East - the underdogs, the little morons that can...Kevin Love had a historic season, and I really like the youth they have on the team, and the athleticism. I think a taste of .500 ball in January will get them sufficiently motivated to make the NBA's Sweet Sixteen.

East Final 4:

Miami v. New York (Miami wins 4-1).... Miami Beats Chicago 4-2

Chicago v. Boston (Chicago wins 4-0)....

West Final 4
OKC v. San Antonio (OKC wins 4-3).... OKC Beats Denver 4-3

Denver v. LA Lakers (Denver wins 4-3)....

Trophy:

Miami rips through OKC in 5.

Howard to AGT

2011-12-22T11:47:00.000-05:00

AGT is America's Got Talent, and I have essentially zero interest in that show. Unfortunately, one of my broadcast idols, Howard Stern, has a tremendous amount of interest in that show, and has agreed to be the next judge, as many people already heard.

People know I like Stern a lot, so they've been asking me what I think about Howard going to AGT, and I have an answer, but it sorta doesn't make any sense, so I want to get it all down on paper where I can think more clearly, albeit not as concisely.

Howard is a remarkable talent - and a remarkably divisive individual. You know how people always say, "there are 2 types of people in the world, those who x and those who y..."? Well there are literally 2 types of people in the world, those who like Howard, and those who don't.

I am always really surprised by those who don't like him, but I don't spend any time and/or attention trying to convince them, I just know that essentially on a daily basis for a VERY long period of time in my life, Howard has provided me and some of my best friends with a remarkable level of laughter, and it rarely has anything to do with what you all think it has do to with.

Yes, Howard does things that most normal people would register as gross, as offensive, as rude and as vulgar. It is a part of his personality - I frankly think it is so amazingly refreshing that he puts himself out there to an extent that literally only Charlie Sheen has - but the difference is a major portion of Howard's real personality is a loving, warm, vulnerable person. People always talk about Howard like his perverse side is a character, but it isn't, and thats what I love about him. He's a full human, flawed, gross, lovely, charming, witty and rude. He's all of it.

AGT is a cookie cutter talent show - i've seen only moments of it, so I won't go into too much judgement, but you know from advertisements and clips if its something you want to see, and I know I don't want to see it. Howard loves it, he raves about it, he can't wait to be a judge. As he's expressed, he doesn't want to be on AGT to bring on Eric The Midget or other recurring Wack Pack characters from his show - he wants to be on because he feels he can judge talent, and given his track record in the studio on the radio, he can.

The thing I worry about the most is that Howard does have a bit of a desire to please everyone - he really tries WAY too hard on his appearances with Letterman, Conan, MTV, etc. When he is himself, when he is his flawed self, talking with Robin & Fred about the news...when he is himself talking about his family or interviewing Porn Star, whenever he is himself, I am drawn. Drawn to his personality, drawn to his tics and flaws, and drawn to his overall presentation.

I don't care that his radio show will be more about AGT than about anything else now, I trust him comically and trust his delivery & style so completely, I will likely even watch and be engaged with the goings on of AGT b/c of Howard - but I just hope that he lets the overall TV public judge him the way he lets his radio audience judge him.

Here's my appeal to Howard: Do nothing but be yourself. Judge the way you want to judge, say what you want to say, but don't try to please us. You are funny, we know you're funny, and you're smart. You are a groundbreaking talent, and there are a lot of people who will never concede that point, and you gotta just let them go.

That's all I got - I'm real excited for Howard to expand his talent and his capacity to do really cool things - and possibly to even reinvent himself. I don't care how harsh the public is to him, I just hope he is not so harsh on himself, and allows his talent to ease out, rather than try to smash us over the head with it.

Baba Booey.

Icing the Kicker

2011-12-05T13:57:00.001-05:00

There is a lot of controversy over whether or not JasonGarrett iced his own kicker this Sunday in the Cowboys game, and I can’t takeit.

As a football fan, every single player & analyst I haveever heard has said that icing doesn’t work. Icing, usually, only gives more time to a kicker to get comfortable andline himself up properly – I don’t have the #’s, but I am probably 100% surethat icing has shown no true effect on games – sometimes they make them,sometimes they miss.

That, however, is when the other team calls thetimeout.

I do believe icing the kicker happens when your own coach does it to you –mostly b/c you start to think, about anything…and in sports, overactivethinking is usually bad.

I have a recurring dream/nightmare that I can’t swing my golf club – that everythingis in the way and even if I swung I know I couldn’t make contact. It usuallyresults in my group/foursome holding back the entire course from progress, andresults in me being so sad and frustrated that I can’t just hit the ball. The worst part of the dream is just thethinking part – that I am over the ball convincing myself I can’t do it.

When a coach calls a timeout, sheepishly, right before akick, you can only believe, as the kicker, that the coach is questioning somethingabout the play, anything, who knows what, and I do believe it has the icingeffect.

Fans and analysts are believing that Garrett iced the kicker in the oldfashioned sense, that he was going to make it (and actually did), but then didn’tb/c he had to think about it. That is partiallytrue, but when your own coach second guesses a situation involving you, that’sicing on a whole new level.

I can predict this for you – at some point Bailey will have to kick anotherfield goal at the end of regulation before this year is up, and I bet theopposing coach will try to ice him, and I can promise you that Bailey will makethe FG – because icing by the opponent doesn’t work. At all.

Disney/Pixar

2011-11-23T16:33:00.000-05:00

Here are my rankings of Pixar films. The only one I didn't like, as in I hope I don't need to watch again, is Cars 2. The rest have some kind of personal connection or made sense to me, as a story.

Toy Story 3
Ratatouille
Toy Story 1
Up
Finding Nemo
Wall-E
Toy Story 2
The Incredibles
Monster's Inc.
Cars
A Bug's Life
Cars 2

And below are the last 10 Disney Studios animated films, ranked. By the looks of things, counting Brave, which comes out soon, I'm optimistic that the last 3 films (Tangled, Brave & The Princess & the Frog) are a glimpse into the future of Disney Animation.

Tangled
Meet the Robinsons
The Princess & The Frog
Bolt
Lilo & Stitch
Brother Bear
Winnie the Pooh
Home on the Range
Chicken Little
Treasure Planet

New England Pilgrims in the 20th Century v. Hurricane Irene.

2011-08-30T18:45:00.001-04:00

Nature, more particularly Hurricane Irene, spent the weekend under the belief that she could best a couple of misfits known as my parents, and I personally found the results to be hilarious.

For those who don't know them, my parents are not completely out of place people who don't know how to operate in this world. Between them they do own a cell phone (one) and at one point they had a satellite dish - they have traveled the world and made it back to Kingston USA in one piece, and they are not incapable or subjects of anyone's pity. They just bought kayaks, and they'll explore that Jones River for the next few dozen years like they are a couple of Lewis & Clark's, except they won't bring the President back a few Grizzly Bears (L&C really did that! They lived caged on the White House lawn for Jefferson's enjoyment).

But as "in the now" as they are, there is an equal part of them that wishes for a world of no electricity, an existence that offers as much challenge and consequence as one that offers reclining chairs and the internet. They don't long for the good old days like the 1960's, they long for the good old days of the 1690's, and it's one thing that gave my sister and I a great deal of comfort when they remained powerless and out of touch for a few days.

If any 2 people took Irene's punches and never hit the mat, it's them, and the below email from my mom today is living proof of that.

Keep punching, Irene, Katia, or whoever you may send next. My parents won't hit back, but they won't go down easy, either.

From the words of Paula Fisher:

Electricity came on during the night. This is what we learned while experiencing the inconveniences of Irene:

We’re old enough to know how to light a gas stove with a match.
E-Garage doors can be opened manually (but that may mean an electrician will be needed to make it an e-door again.)
Rain Barrels with the lid not on could (and did) cause a squirrel death in the Ahdeenah section of Kingston L
When there are no street lights there are more than just Orion’s Belt, and the Big & Little Dippers visible in the night sky
We actually have ambulatory neighbors (We had thought perhaps they were disabled and could only get from one place to another in cars)
Neighborhood generators make for an annoying mosquito-like hum/buzz if you don’t have one
I can go without coffee for two days and not even realize I have
Rules to games like rummy and gin rummy are not like riding a bicycle, you don’t remember, but as long as you agree to make them up as you go along it’s OK.
Houses look really warm and inviting from the outside when lit with candlelight
Since hurricanes usually happen in the summer and Masterpiece (Theatre, Mystery, Classic) are all repeats it’s OK if you miss one
Having an unexpected day off cuz your company has no power is a really cool surprise and can be very productive
And finally, it’s worth getting your yard raked, and decorative accouterments back in place even though Katia may be on her way next week

The First Time Sports Have Ever Been Played!

2011-07-11T08:07:00.000-04:00

This is a headline from ESPN.com today, in regards to the US Women's Soccer team heroics.

Call it Team Destiny. After Sunday's theater, it's hard to see the U.S. not winning it all

Um. What?

I don't really feel like any thinking person needs a rationale why that's insane, but I submit to you the 2001 World Series, a series in which basically the entire country was rooting for the Yankees. The heroics of Jeter & Brosius were insanely storybook, and BH Kim did all he could to script an emotional story, resulting in WS rings for the Yankees, but that little thing called reality got in the way.

Why is the American press acting as if nobody has ever played sports before? As if no single game has ever been amazing, followed up by a disappointing loss?

Another example - the Celtics win game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals in the greatest comeback in NBA Playoff history. With game 4, at home, on the horizon, they're poised to take a 3-1 lead in the series at home v. New Jersey, and head to the Finals against the Lakers - a series we had to wait 6 years for, but a series we all wanted.

But guess what? It didn't happen. Kidd & Martin destroyed the C's in 3 consecutive games, and it ended in 6.

Listen, I'm thrilled the US Women's team had a victory that was neat, and I like Soccer and want it to succeed in this country purely b/c the other sports are becoming too much to bear from a financial perspective, but I think part of the reason we hate on soccer a bit in this country is because we almost refuse to get to know it, to take the time to massage the relationship and understand nuances of the game.

Last night Tony DiCicco, former US coach and current ESPN analyst, was calling the victory yesterday a "Triumph of the American Spirit". That leads to so many questions, like:
1. If they lose, did the American spirit fail? Or can this only be a positive thing?
2. Doesn't that inherently downplay the athleticism of a victory like that?
3. Could the win simply have been great execution down the stretch?

Simply put, what we saw yesterday was sports at its finest - nothing more nothing less. It wasn't World War II, no fascist regime was toppled, and it wasn't the next introduction of Women's Soccer as the National Sport of the future. It was a (miracle?) victory over a Brazilian team that executed poorly. There is no script, there is no destiny, there is just sports - and nobody knows what will happen.

Cars 2

2011-07-09T23:34:00.000-04:00

I was watching Cars 2 tonight, which I pretty much didn't like at all, and I couldn't help but think the scene when they first get to Japan and your eyeballs are popping out of your skull b/c there is so much going on, and there is complete overload and you're trying to figure out how it all fits and and it's just so much stuff...

I've never had that feeling before with a Pixar movie, and it's disappointing to me, as a person who has enjoyed the Pixar run more than anyone I know, that no matter what this rakes in in the box office, an extended "Larry the Cable Guy" act isn't something I will forget anytime soon, and I'm disappointed.

Big hopes for Brave to get Pixar back on track.

SLRHS

2011-06-28T23:59:00.000-04:00

I think it is incredible that I still feel very strong feelings of friendship for a lot of people I went to High School with, even if we don't see each other much. Basically, if you're one of those guys (or girls) I hung out with a lot from 92-95, then a bit less from 95-99, then a bit less than that from 99-Present, I still think you're awesome, and I still really appreciate how you helped make me, me.

...Wild Canyon Games...

2011-06-06T01:43:00.000-04:00

It is real important to me to capture this right now - the way I feel about the recently concluded Wild Canyon Games is phenomenally hard to explain, but I'm going to do my best here, and hopefully people will stay with me.

Trust me, when I write blog posts I think about all the possible negative things people can say and think about the things I write, and it sorta consumes me, but i want to be really accurate with these feelings because the fact that this post can potentially live forever really excites the dormant genealogist in me.

The Wild Canyon Games are a Nike sponsored event that take place in the Oregon high desert - a place until this weekend I had no idea existed, but a place that owns a huge, huge memory in my life now, and I feel like I owe it a lot, as weird as that sounds.

The Wild Canyon Games (WGC) took place over the course of 3 separate days, with various events which I'll do my best to explain, and of course you can always visit the Wild Canyon Games website to see more details.

We arrived in Portland on Thursday night, June 2nd...that feels like an absolute eternity ago, mostly because the "we" in this paragraph were me and some coworkers, only about 3 of them I knew well, and the remaining were essentially complete strangers. The comparisons to me living my own Survivor in a way are really plentiful - it just felt a lot like a giant game for a few days.

I started on Tuesday of last week at TomTom, a new career venture and a whole new industry, "new" was the theme of my last week, and the newness of the faces at the airport of my teammates really was something pretty intimidating, but I was as much excited as I was nervous. But I feel like I'm not explaining the games well.

The weeks leading up to the event I looked at the WGC website and felt it was all sorta lacking in logistical information, it didn't really explain to me what the events were, and now I can see why. It was 36 hours of physical mayhem - events in these games ranged from insanely hard (.25 mile completely WAY uphill run) to a one mile swim at 7AM in a freezing cold lake or even tame ones like a 300 yard sprint through grass as part of an overall relay race unlike anything you've ever seen.

The games are a masterpiece, the event management is phenomenal, and the site for these games, a Young Life camp buried deep in Oregon is a setting unlike any other piece of earth I've ever been to. TomTom asked me to be a part of this, and while it was intimidating, I can't imagine a better way to meet the crew and meet the culture, and I have to say I am incredibly impressed - not against my preconceived notions, but mostly as compared to what my fears were.

We landed in Portland and slept in a hotel nearby, then left the next afternoon 3.5 hours or so out to the Ranch where the games were taking place. Upon pulling into the facility, we first passed the giant lake for the mile swim - buoys as far as the eye could see, and just a massive expanse of rock and cliff around it, a desert that was more inviting than Arizona, with a challenging swim venue nestled into it its nooks and crannies.

As we drove into the camp, we were greeted with what we were told would be "dorms" for camping, but happened upon some brand new better-than-camp style sleeping arrangements, which we shared with a really friendly team from Nike, who sponsored the event and sponsored some of our gear as well.

We had our introductory dinner (lasagna and sandwiches in grab-n-go boxes, and made ourselves comfortable at the expansive camp area. I don't want to go into detail on this camp itself, but it was basically an amusement park - waterslides, wall climbing courses, disc golf courses, wiffleball fields, giant basketball complex, and ice cream diners, it was just immense, and everything a kid could ever want they could have.

The most amazing thing was this place was dry - no alcohol of any kind - and also no wireless connectivity - we were all just there, we all just had to take each other in, all of our flaws and personality quirks and differences, but overall there was SO little in the world of conflict at this thing, it was entirely harmonious, and the setting is responsible for nearly all of that, I believe that completely.

We all went to bed terrified of our next day's adventure, but excited. The day would begin with a 2 events that were to occur simultaneously. The 2 events were as follows:

Triathlon-

1 Mile Swim in a lake (I did this one in 36ish minutes, not sure of exact time, but I was thrilled. I think it may have been a .92 course, but my zigzagerific style def. made up that .08, no questions asked.
15 Mile Mountain Bike Ride from Hell
10K through the campsite, on pavement, gravel and dirt.

And while that was going on, the other 4 members of your team competed in a Geocache unlike anything I have ever seen. Geocache teams divided up into groups of 2, and set out on foot into this massive wilderness in order to rack up as many caches as possible, which wasn't an easy feat. They were in the sun from 7-12, up and down immense hills and mountains looking for a cache of various point values.

We did these 2 events simultaneously and the scores were combined, in a really odd, but effective fashion. That was the morning.

The afternoon was a team race of sorts, unlike anything I have ever done. There were 7 different events that needed to be completed by your 7 team members, and having only done one of these events, I'll explain what the other 6 seemed like to me:

Cliff Jump - this was really a 12 foot jump off of a fake rock ledge in the water park area, into the pool. The temps were cold, but not too much of a challenge
Waterslide - not much to say about this
Adventure Course - this was a massive 3 story ropes-ish type course, where a competitor would strap him or herself in and climb up stairs and over bars, through, over and under ropes and other devices that forced balance and poise, very cool activity.
Cliff Swing - People were pulled back by a winch about 50 feet up into the air over 30 or so foot deep cliff, and they had to swing, and attempt to throw a water balloon into a parachute laying on the ground below, which proved to be exceedingly difficult and also extremely chaotic.
Zipline - There were a few ziplines that started from about 1/8th of a mile up a very steep cliff, down to a lake below. Teammates flew down this line and attempted to throw a tennis ball into about a 5 by 5 foot floating target, when they were about 15 feet in the air...they came crashing into the water and had to swim to shore, while still harnessed.
Ropes Course - At least 50 feet in the air, at a very high point in the campground, a teammate had to navigate through a challenging rope course and attempt to jump 10 feet off a platform, while harnessed in and 50 feet up, to catch a trapeze - this was a 50/50 proposition
Blob/Iceberg - This is what I competed in, and it started with walking up a tower, about5 15 to 20 feet up in the air. You'd walk to the end, pirate style, of this tower, and jump onto a blob - which would shoot the competitor in front of you in line off of this inflatable blob into the lake. It was a catapult of sorts, using an giant inner tube of sorts. Once you yourself were propelled by the competitor behind you into the water, you would then swim a little less than 1/8 of a mile to an "iceberg" which was a floating wall of death, of which you had to use foot and hand stirrups to climb yourself up the wall. This was immensely challenging given my 3 factors:

I have no upper body strength
I had already done a mile swim in the AM and I don't know how to use my legs to swim.
This blob had a backwards pitch to it a bit at the start, you really needed to use all your body muscle to get up it.

So the goal was to move through all 7 of those as quickly as possible - there were 4 events in group A, and 3 events in group B, which were separated by 1.1 miles or so - it was a challenge to run back and forth to these, but we had to do it.

We completed the triathlon near the bottom of the pack, maybe 80th out of 105 teams or so, but in the Challenge events in the afternoon we fared MUCH better, I think 49th out of the 105 teams, which was a big point of pride for us.

We went to bed completely exhausted, but still had the full team relay race to go. Commencing at 7:30 Sunday morning, the relay race consisted of:

300 yard sprint on grass
Mt. Bike course, shorter than saturday but still challenging
Obstacle course - which I took part in, and started strong, but ended badly with failing to climb over the 9 foot wall, and fighting real hard up the 100 yard uphill run after the bridge
1/2 mile sprint on pavement
1/8 mile sprint swim
Halfway Up a 1/4 mile steep, steep hill
The 2nd half of the steep, steep hill.

The event was incredible, the relay was so fun, and the games concluded after these events.

The amount of time and energy the volunteers and staff put in was nothing short of remarkable, they worked day and night, tirelessly, to ensure we had an amazing time, and we did.

But mostly I am so happy to be part of the TomTom organization. At this point, this type of event isn't yet in TomTom's wheelhouse, a lot of first timers and rookies were taking part in a series of events like this, and it really was amazing to see how 14 people (out of an office of around 80!) can group together and perform in very challenging situations, with zero drama, zero moments of non-support, and zero doubt.

It was an inspiring weekend, from the 1 arm and 1 legged individuals pushing through immense physical barriers, to the personal accomplishment of swimming a mile, kickstarting my interest to finish an Olympic triathlon...I am taking so much away from this weekend, and I can't find what thing or what source should be the recipient of my overwhelmingly positive emotion I am currently bottling up...

Thanks for reading and just sign up next year.

...Cavs fans, settle down...

2011-05-18T09:18:00.000-04:00

The Cavs won the 1st and 4th picks last night, here are the 1st and 4th picks from 2000 on - will these fellas a championship make? I wouldn't be so sure. Success rate can't be higher than %50. We know they are picking Kyrie Irving & probably Kanter - would you be thrilled beyond belief at your chances? If you were Orlando, would you sign and trade Dwight for these picks? I would!

2010 - John Wall, Wesley Johnson
Way, way, way too early to judge either of these guys. But Cavs fans, you aren't winning in '11-'12 either way.

2009 - Blake Griffin, Tyreke Evans (WOW!)
Immediate impact players, although Evans has had big time maturity issues. Just speaks to the insanity of the draft, and drafting young players.

2008 - Derek Rose, Russell Westbrook (WOW!)
Two years into these picks, you have a mega-squad...

2007 - Greg Oden, Mike Conley
Injuries and disappointments...Conley isn't bad, but he's not a championship PG/SG

2006 - Andrea Bargnani, Tyrus Thomas
No thanks.

2005 - Andrew Bogut, Chris Paul
Took Bogut a LONG time to get good, Paul was immediate. If the Cavs use this blueprint, they are a strong '14-'15 team.

2004 - Dwight Howard, Shaun Livingston
Poor Shaun. Dwight + anyone is a good bet, although I can't stand him.

2003 - Lebron James, Chris Bosh
Eight seasons later, 0 championships

2002 - Yao Ming, Drew Gooden
See Oden & Conley

2001 - Kwame Brown, Eddy Curry
Plop.

2000 - Kenyon Martin, Marcus Fizer
Not horrible, but not what you want...

...My Mellon Collie...

2011-04-15T23:27:00.000-04:00

For anyone who is a Smashing Pumpkins fan, I spent about 3 hours today listening to Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, and while I have nothing but incredible things to say about the album, I do recognize that making a double album following up the flawless Siamese Dream was a little presumptuous, and I can look back with reasonable judgement and think, "I wish Mellon Collie was a single album."

So, I am making it a single album. The way I put this in my own brain was, if I was going to tell someone about the Pumpkins for the first time, and after they got comfortable with the insanity of Siamese Dream, I'd then introduce them to Mellon Collie, and this would be the album I wish they had the chance to hear:

1. Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness

2. Thru The Eyes Of Ruby

3. Bullet With Butterfly Wings

4. Tonight, Tonight

5. Zero

6. Galapogos

7. Muzzle

8. Here Is No Why

9. 1979

10. Thirty-Three

11. In The Arms of Sleep

...NCAA @ 9:20pm...

2011-04-04T07:33:00.000-04:00

Here is the answer to the question, "Why is the NCAA game at 9:20 tonight?":

Because you always have, and will continue to, watch big games at 9:20pm.

Advertisers drive the whole thing, obviously. This isn't about anything besides maximizing the advertising dollar - anyone who says different is not telling the truth, and anyone who can't understand that doesn't want to know the truth.

You may say, "but I think more people would watch if it started at 8:30," but you don't run Neilson, and you don't sell advertising space for CBS. CBS and its agencies for advertising feel differently. They don't sell a mythical larger audience an hour earlier, they sell a proven audience number that captures full attention of the LIVE West Coast viewership at 9:20pm.

Much like anything else in our capitalistic society - if you don't like how late it starts, don't watch, but more importantly, don't buy the products that advertise during the game, and don't visit the websites of the products that advertise during the game.

We can defeat this thing and by 2085 the game may start at 9:05, if we fight hard enough!

...Imagineer...

2011-03-21T21:24:00.000-04:00

This is why being an imagineer is the greatest possible job on earth.

From the 8:00 minute mark til the end is really the part that astounds me.

This show is completely done by projection, no exterior lighting other than the projection, and each brick of the castle was mapped to design the video and project onto the castle. The photos in the show are selected daily, from the photos that Disney takes throughout the day of guests (yes, voluntarily)

...Let the Libyan Lies Begin...

2011-03-20T23:09:00.000-04:00

This will be short and sweet, but John Kerry going on record saying that Gadaffi isn't the target, and that the Humanitarian aspect is the reason we are charging into Libya, is really an insult to anyone who has a brain and can think their way out of a wet paper bag.

The reason that Humanitarian action is needed is because of Gadaffi, so there are 2 choices here.

We are either trying to stop a deluge with a roll of paper towels, instead of clamping up the leak. Or we are flat out lying, and going after Gadaffi is our motive, and we won't stop until we see him hang on the internet like we did with Hussein. Thank God Hussein is dead, given our leaders still can't go into Iraq without complete military coverage, 5 years later.

Hopefully if we get Gadaffi soon we'll all be able to take that Libyan vacation we've been dying to take in 2017.

Watch the news for 5 seconds and the list of propaganda statements being made to get the public on the side of this listless mission is so apparent and so putrid. They are throwing out the T word - yup, we're now afraid of Libyan terrorism. What a friggen coincidence? The same exact week we decide to go in, and try to save every last civilian in Libya, we realize that we may be in trouble with Libyan terrorists.

The only logical thing I can think of is that we have a flux capacitor we shouldn't have:
(won't let me embed):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDS81Ibazdk

...meeting strangers...

2011-03-19T19:16:00.000-04:00

I am not good at talking to strangers - I can handle myself in an airport with a ticket counter person, or at a hotel when someone wants to take my credit card and have me be on my way - but having real conversation with a stranger always immediately leads me to a place where I am counting off the ways in which my brain doesn't work like theirs, and how their approach isn't the same as mine, and before I know it I've created a checklist of reasons why I'm different than this person, and I'm counting the seconds until the interaction is over.

On late Thursday night, Alison and I were in line to catch a boat from a dinner show we saw to visit the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, and I veered out of the long line to check out a map of where we were, and essentially kill time in what would be a long, long wait.

As I was 15 feet away, I heard Alison talking to a stranger, and my first reaction was, "uh oh, this is a long long line..." I was immediately thinking that it'd be hard to escape the conversation when it took the turn it always seems to take, and I walked back over in the middle of the chat and braced myself - after all at least had something in common - we had both just seen the same dinner show.

The conversation completely blew me away - it was an older couple, the male being 65 or so and the female likely 10 or so years younger - both Disney fanatics (she more than he), both eager to kill the time with a good conversation. This newly married couple from Anoka, MN (The Self-Proclaimed Halloween Capitol of the World) were gracious enough to bless us with their familial charm for the next hour while we waited for the boat.

We exchanged phone numbers and emails, promised if we were ever in each other's towns we'd call each other up, and one thing in particular struck me. The invitation to come over and meet up for "supper" was such a unique and homey way to talk - the use of that word, "supper", struck such a chord in me. Not many people use that word, and I don't know if a stranger has ever offered me over for it before, and both Alison and I felt immediate warmth from these strangers, it was a really great chance coincidence.

I have no clue if I'll ever see them again - they are Disney Vacation Club members as Alison and I are, and given the frequency we both find ourselves in Disney World, there is a chance we'll meet up with them again - I've already sent a "nice to have met you" email and I'm already waiting for the reply. I hope we find ourselves together for supper at some point in the future, missing out on that opportunity would really be a waste of what was a fantastic hour of our lives.

...Gasoline...

2011-03-08T09:22:00.000-05:00

Before you say a word about gas prices - as you pump your car full of gas - please realize that you are in control of what price that gas costs.

You can blame a president, you can blame perpetual crisis in the middle east. You can blame Qadafi and Hussein and Mubarak and Libya and Pakistan and Afghanistan and Al Queda and Bush and Bush 2 and Mike Huckabee...but the real blame is us.

Me, you, everyone who drives a stupid car that uses stupid gasoline. "But I have to get to work" is a symptom, it isn't the justification. Listen, you bought into this game of nonsense, and I did too, and we all did. I cannot believe gas is as cheap as it is - and I'm not saying that as compared to Europe or anywhere else, I'm saying as compared to a basic reality.

We know that companies like to make money, and actually owe money to the people who make them companies. We know oil companies sell a product to us, and we also know that if we purchase that product in the same volume whether it is at X price or X+Y price, then they are being irresponsible to their shareholders if they don't add the Y, and possibly throw in a Z while they're at it.

Instead of looking into the camera of your local news while pumping your stupid car full of stupid gas, think for a second about the level of control you have.

Yes, I own a gas guzzling SUV, and i own a not gas guzzling compact car. The reason I have both types of vehicles is so I can be responsible when gas prices skyrocket, and purchase less gasoline, therefore showing the sellers and manufacturers that yes, price does matter to me.

If you hate the price of gas, stop paying for gas. If you have to pay for gas, pay for less of it. Ask your friends to do the same. If they choose not to, then Gas companies win, you lose, and it was a fair fight.

I'm boarding an airplane now, that is 100% full of other people who have decided to complain about gas while whizzing through the air on a giant gas guzzling machine that puts dolla billz into the pockets of the companies they say they despise.

...New Look C's...

2011-02-24T23:43:00.003-05:00

This is the most incredible off the court day I can ever remember for the Boston Celtics. Here, in fact, are my top 5 most memorable off the court day the C's have had, to me, in reverse order of importance:

The day in Bailey Island, ME where Jake showed me, with a tear in his eye, the day the Celtics traded Bryant Stith.
While I was at the draft lottery, the Celtics expected to get the #1 pick (again) and secure either Oden or Durant, and instead ended up with the #5 pick, which deflated me at the time, but led to...
At the draft, the Celtics draft Jeff Green & traded him on draft night for Ray Allen - starting the rumors of the eventual Garnett arrival in Boston.
The day the ping pong balls bounced the wrong way and the C's thought they'd get #1 & #3 (Duncan & Billups) in the draft, and ended up with #3 and #6 (Billups & Mercer).
Today, the day they traded Perk & others, in conjunction with the complete NBA mania, and the short 9 man Celtics squad v. a new look Denver team.

So that brings us to today, and as someone who clearly talks about and loves the NBA, I have had more than a few folks ask me what I think about today's deals.

I think today's flurry of trades are not ones you can assess totally, as I don't think they are done. The Celtics are going to acquire other players, and individual moves are just pieces of the puzzle. If the Celtics acquire Troy Murphy, and if they acquire another big man who can play some kind of Defense, even a Rasheed Wallace, and if Shaq is healthy and just resting, then I am not upset at all with the deal.

Jeff Green is a superstud, I believe that. Last year during the playoffs I wrote this about Jeff Green:

But the Thunder's chemistry is in a lab coat, with beakers and bunson burners all over the place. At this point they are mad scientists. Chemistry doesn't just keep people happy, chemistry makes normal players turn into complete badasses. Their bench is so deep, and so badass, and I don't even think they are that physically gifted, or at least NBA-gifted. Jeff Green has turned into a supermachine, a defensive player with the confidence of a Hall of Famer. He is so quietly destroying the Lakers with all the intangibles that I am starting to think he is in his early 30's, and somehow had a Face/Off transplant with Pippen from the mid 90's.

To be honest, I feel that way about him still. As Steve Kerr put it tonight, big men aren't the Celtics issue, Dwight Howard is almost literally a clown and the Magic aren't the problem. Yes, we may struggle against LA again, but I don't think I'm too terrified - and there is no planning on beating Duncan if the Spurs advance, you just have to hope it happens. Bottom line, I think that Jeff Green is the best player in the entire trade, and I am psyched to have him in green, extension or not.

Now we get to Kendrick Perkins, which is absolutely more complex and difficult to think through. Here is what I wrote about Perkins after his injury during the Finals last year. If you don't feel like reading the entire other post, the gist is this: I love Perkins, I was sad to see him get hurt, and I am furious that he was robbed of the ring.

But it gets more complex. The NBA is finance, plain and simple. The NBA is about squeezing the proper combinations of contracts & attitudes into a giant blender, and making the nectar that comes out taste delicious. It's a nearly impossible task.

I have said for a long time, that in a marriage, love isn't enough for it to to work. It's a baseline, you have to love each other, but you have to realize that you also have to have aligned philosophies on money, kids, things that you find fun, how to approach life, etc.

In the NBA, talent isn't nearly enough. Having the right Center for your team, even if he is perfect for you and perhaps better than the one you replace him with - that may not be enough to make it all work. And I think the fact that Perkins contract was up this year, and at this time last year I was already completely concerned with his financial situation, which, I cannot say enough, is more important than the player's talent and/or chemistry with the other players.

So Perkins is gone, and I think he is gone because his injury threw his contract situation into complete chaos. The real value for him is a moving target, and when given the choice to offer Jeff Green just under $6 Million next year (qualifying offer), and let his restricted free agent status tell us, is he worth it? I think we extend his contract, sign Kristic and let Big Baby walk. Those are my takes, but Ainge has never done what I thought he would do.

I will miss Perkins, I was not shy about loving his style, his game, his play, and his heart, even if he was a pain a bunch of the time.

Perkins was not his former self, however. He was more than a liability this year offensively, and I didn't see light at the end of that tunnel, for this season at least. Perkins couldn't jump, couldn't go back up quickly, and his temper is a dangerous thing in the league of quick T's. Don't take this as sour grapes - I think he is fantastic, and I could see the C's winning it all with him as the anchor on defense.

I also can see them winning it when nobody is there on the Lakers to cover a second unit of West, Jeff Green, Troy Murphy, Glen Davis & Jermaine O'Neal. So at the end of the day, I think the emotions are real, and strong, but the reality is, I like this new look team.

...My 2011 Oscar Thoughts...

2011-02-24T22:55:00.000-05:00

Picture

1. The Social Network
I saw this on a plane, and I feel like if I saw it in the theatre it'd be in my top 5 of the last 5 years (see my list below). I feel like this movie had everything, but unfortunately it looks like it embellished the truth pretty significantly, so that's disappointing. But oh well, who cares. I don't. The score, I should mention, was my favorite since Wall-E.

2. Toy Story 3
At the time when I saw this, I declared it my favorite all-time animated film. There hasn't been an animated movie that has brought out the kind of emotional reaction and connection like this one did, ever. On a side note, I am not confident about Cars 2.

3. 127 Hours
I put off seeing this one for so long because I knew the story - i saw the hour 20/20 or whatever it was with Tom Brokaw and Aron Ralston a few years ago. I knew about the arm, the fall, the tendon, the water, the whole thing...But this really was an achievement by Boyle more than anything else, he really drove the story home with tons of clever film techniques that I don't think anyone would have imagined - I won't give things away, and I don't know technical film-speak, but he made a story we all know, and sorta dread reliving, into a compelling 1.5 hours.

4. The Kids Are All Right
Totally unique look at gay marriage and gay relationships. It wasn't about the troubles of life b/c the couple was gay, it was about the troubles of relationships, and how confusing they are in general. I think in the long run, if people watch this en masse, it could do more for the same-sex marriage cause than any other movie to this point has.

5. True Grit
Like every Coen Brothers movie, this was entertaining from start to finish. See my sub-Coen Brothers list below. If I could write one sentence as compelling as every single line in a Coen Brothers movie, I'd be such a happy fella.

6. The King’s Speech
The acting performances were incredible, and the story was really great. I had 2 British people watching this movie about 7 rows in front of me, and they were the only people laughing at some of the jokes. I think I would have liked this more if I was British. Royalty is silly, though, isn't it?

7. The Fighter
I spend my whole life avoiding conversations like basically every conversation that took place in this movie. What a painful existence - I don't mean poor, I mean completely happily ignorant. So happily ignorant they don't even know they're all unhappy.

8. Inception
I liked Inception more than this, but it's such a hard film to put into place compared to the rest of them. It was a visual spectacle, it was the token Summer nominee that will be part of the 10 films as long as there are 10 nominees, it deserves accolades but I don't think it deserves Best Picture nomination. It was a cool story, but and as I said before it sorta did break new ground visually...basically I don't have anything bad to say about it, but it wasn't what is usually a Best Picture nomination.

9. Winter's Bone
This one is so clearly the result of the 10 nominations. This was Frozen River, it was Vera Drake - it wasn't a Best Picture nominee for real, it was just a few good & great acting performances. I can see how this book could be astounding, but as a film it was just so-so.

10. Black Swan
If Natalie Portman wasn't exploring her sexuality on the big screen, this movie would have been nominated for a Razzie. How many consecutive conversations between The Swan & the Director did we need to hear him say cliche after cliche about her needing to "let go?" See my sub-Worst Best Picture Nominees since '00 list below.

(If it's in red, I didn't see it)
Actor

1. Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
2. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
3. James Franco, 127 Hours
4. Jeff Bridges, True Grit
5. Javier Bardem, Biutiful

Actress

1. Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
2. Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
3. Natalie Portman, Black Swan
4. Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
5. Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

S. Actor

1. Christian Bale, The Fighter
2. Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech
3. Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
4. John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone
5. Jeremy Renner, The Town

S. Actress

1. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
2. Melissa Leo, The Fighter
3. Amy Adams, The Fighter
4. Helena Bonham Carter, The Kings Speech
5. Jackie Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Director

1. Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
2. David Fincher, The Social Network
3. Joel & Ethan Coen, True Grit
4. David O. Russell, The Fighter
5. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan

No Danny Boyle in this category is dumb. Dumb Dumb Dumb. I would say that his direction and film-making in this year was outdone by nobody - the story of 127 Hours was carried completely by the direction. The acting was good, but not as good as the direction. So stunned.

Original Screenplay

1. Inception
2. The Kids Are All Right
3. The King’s Speech
4. The Fighter
5. Another Year

Adapted Screenplay

1. Toy Story 3
2. The Social Network
3. 127 Hours
4. True Grit
5. Winter’s Bone

Animated

1. Toy Story 3
In the category, there is no way anyone could compete with this. Pixar is magical, the characters are iconic, and the story was fluid and fantastic. This is a no brainer, and the Academy will agree.

2. How to Train Your Dragon
Who names movies? Who titles films? This is a terrible name for a really great story. It was a funny & caring story, and the name of the movie is terrible, which I think turned off viewers. I am biased, it wasn't as good as Tangled, but it was good.

3. The Illusionist
I am completely baffled by this selection. Triplets of Belleville was really entertaining from start to finish, the story was quirky and made sense. This story was nonsense. It was, as Ryan said, a movie you like if you are trying to prove something about yourself. It was mostly boring, I didn't fall asleep, but the connection between the main characters made no sense. Visually, the only interesting thing was the vehicles - this guy loves transportation (bikes, trains, cars, etc), but otherwise it was a yawn, and in ryan's case, a snooze.

I also want to say that it is effin nonsense that Tangled wasn't nominated. The scene on the water with the floating candles was a remarkable achievement - one of those scenes that animators spend months and months working on, and one of those scenes that changes the landscape of the genre. I am not sure if there was something going on, some kind of bias, but it was really stupid that it was skipped over, especially for The Illusionist.

* My Top 10 Films in the Last 5 Years:
10. Waltz With Bashir
9. Up
8. The Social Network
7. Inglorious Basterds
6. The Cove
5. Atonement
4. There Will Be Blood
3. Toy Story 3
2. The Hangover
1. The Dark Knight

* Top 10 Coen Brothers Movies:
10. Hudsucker Proxy
9. Miller's Crossing
8. Intolerable Cruelty
7. Raising Arizona
6. True Grit
5. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
4. Burn After Reading
3. A Serious Man
2. Fargo
1. The Big Lebowski

* Top 5 Worst Best Picture Nominees Since '00:
5. Master & Commander
4. Black Swan
3. The Blind Side
2. Curious Case of Benjamin Button
1. Crash - and it WON!?!

...If there is NBA Hoops Next Year...

2011-02-23T13:04:00.004-05:00

My projected 2012 NBA All-Star Teams:

East:
G - Derrick Rose, Bulls
G - Dwyane Wade, Heat
F - Lebron James, Heat
F - Carmelo Anthony, Knicks
C - Dwight Howard, Magic

G - Darren Williams, Nets
F - Chris Bosh, Heat
F - Kevin Garnett, Celtics
G - Rajon Rondo, Celtics
F - Paul Pierce, Celtics
F - Carlos Boozer, Bulls * Edit on 2/24 - I forgot Amare, and this will go to him. I'm big on Bogut next year.
C - Andrew Bogut, Bucks

West:
G - Chris Paul, Hornets
G - Kobe Bryant, Lakers
F - Kevin Durant, Thunder
F - Blake Griffin, Clippers
C - Yao Ming, Team TBD * Will be replaced by Tim Duncan, Spurs

F - Pau Gasol, Lakers
G - Tony Parker, Spurs
F - Kevin Love, Wolves
F - Dirk Nowitzki, Mavericks
G - Russell Westbrook, Thunder
C - LaMarcus Aldridge, Blazers
G - Eric Gordon, Clippers

...the Melo saga is over, and everyone is upset...

2011-02-22T20:02:00.000-05:00

We treat pro athletes, and their desires, like George Bailey treats his family in this scene (start at :50, and watch til 8:25 if you are ambitious. Just do it, it's tremendous movie-making). Watch this scene as if we all George Bailey and we're fans of the NBA, and his children are the players who make up our team, year in and year out.

We are a chaotic fanbase - we are fickle group of maniacs who cannot decide what we want, except we all know we don't like it when people are rich. The only thing we like less than these guys being rich, is them being rich & happy - oh nothing is worse.

Maybe I'm misreading things, but no question the overall media, even the NY media, seems to be frustrated with this deal. Dick Vitale had the nerve this morning on Mike & Mike radio show to say that the quality of the NBA product will be bad, b/c there are 8-10 teams that are good, and the rest will stink.

This is coming from a guy that champions NCAA basketball - has he ever seen the 20 worst teams in the tournament before? Out of the hundreds of teams in the NCAA tourney, there are 7 or 8 every year that actually have a chance to win, the rest are a collection of crazies who are good enough to play D1, not good enough for the pros, and definitely not talented enough mentally to will a team to greatness.

But this isn't college, it's about the NBA, it's about Jon Barry and everyone else who is really mad at Carmelo for wanting to play with Amare, and possibly one of the three best point guards in the league, next year when Paul or D. Williams joins them both in New York.

We get mad at the players for wanting to play for a team purely for money (Joe Johnson in Atlanta), and we get mad at players when they join up with other superstars in an attempt to win it all (Lebron, Bosh & D.Wade). We're just upset about it all.

We are George Bailey when it comes to being possessive about our superstars..."what's wrong with our car!" we lament, and we scream at our players for leaving for money, and scream at them for leaving for rings.

Now, I am of the opinion that Carmelo + CP3 + Amare may not be enough to win it all, but I know they have a shot. I don't buy this, "too many superstars on one team are bad" theory, but you can't argue with the fact that Carmelo, in his own brain, thinks a championship is more likely.

Guys like Jon Barry & Dick Vitale spending their time living in Pottersville, thinking that the only way to earn your success is to do so on your own, miserably, without a friend in the world...they resent the guys who want to be with friends, play where there is fame, and make the money they have earned.

As far as the money goes, I don't know what to tell you, people, you are in control of all this. We are in control of all of it. I live my life understanding that fact, and understanding that as long as I dish out $80/seat 10-15 times a year, I am allowing Kevin Garnett to be paid an insane sum that makes no real sense. I contribute, so I don't complain.

Every time you watch a game on TV, buy a shirt, or buy products that are advertised on the TNT broadcasts, you are contributing to it all. Every time you go to a bar airing the game, or take part in a fan poll on NBA.com, you're contributing. That's just the way it is. I don't know if that's the real crux of the issue with this trade, but I know it's part of it all.

...Me and The Beatles...

2011-02-15T19:59:00.000-05:00

First of all, I can't believe that the Blogger dictionary doesn't know The Beatles, and remove the squiggly "you spelled this wrong" line underneath it. How sad. It sorta diminishes this post before I even start, but I guess I could have kept my mouth shut and none of you would have known.

It is not a common thing that you can pinpoint the moment your life changed, and I am not exaggerating at all that I could easily do that when it comes to the Beatles. As a matter of fact, with the help of Trav, I bet he could tell me, almost to the minute, when my life changed.

Mr. Brande, 10th grade History/Social Studies teacher at Silver Lake Regional, who knew he would be the catalyst for a momentum shift in my musical life that would change the way I approach art - maybe he knew, and it was certainly his intention, but I wonder if he knew.

I walked into his History class on Wednesday, December 23rd, 1992, I think it may have actually have been 5th period, but i am not entirely sure, and Brande sat us down to tell us that, because it was the last day before Christmas break, we'd watch The Compleat Beatles, which you can watch on Youtube and I embedded Part 1 here:

I sat, and watched, and its hard as an adult to remember at time when I listened to Beatles songs with zero context - the thoughts of "I've heard this before" or, "Mrs. Donavan used to sing this to us in First Grade," were the depths that my thoughts went to.

Until Eleanor Rigby came on the screen. I don't think I had ever heard that - the deprivation of not hearing that song literally may be the closest to child abuse that my parents ever came - until the moment it came on the screen during the Compleat Beatles.

The song was completely mesmerizing to me, and it broke me down quickly. I don't know what I was listening to at that time of my life, I know I was still into Bel Biv Devoe, and I owned some Fresh Prince albums, and I am sure I was into the High 5 At 9 on whatever JAMN 94.5 was at the time...but the point isn't to list off things that people will remember, it is to refresh my own memory of my relationship with the Fab 4.

The next day, Christmas eve, I took out my parents old album collection and searched high and low for Revolver, so I could listen to Eleanor Rigby. I remember talking to my mom about what album Eleanor Rigby was on, there was no internet or itunes, no way to remember the albums and songs except asking your Mum...

I went to great lengths to listen to my parents vast Beatles collection on vinyl. The stereo system was downstairs, and my bedroom was upstairs, and I actually sent speaker wire outside the house up to my bedroom, and plugged in the speakers so I could play albums downstairs, and listen in my room while I played Super Nintendo. My parents vinyl collection included Sgt. Pepper, Let it Be, Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album and a few others.

That collection was supplemented over the years by cassette tapes mostly, and then gradually onto CD's. By the time I hit college I owned every second of Beatles music available to the consumer world - and the release of the Anthology albums and TV shows was something I'll never forget - it was a real taste of what it felt like to hear something "new"...

This commercial spoke to me so completely

It's almost 20 years later, and I still own it all, and don't listen to it enough. I really ache for the feeling of listening to those songs on vinyl during nights and weekends, and I am amazed by how good that really sounded. I miss the feeling I used to have about the Beatles, and I'll never find it again, and it's sorta sad, but it's a fantastic memory I have of childhood.

...Exit, A Review...

2011-01-29T09:39:00.000-05:00

I just finished watching Exit Through The Gift Shop, one of the films nominated for a 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary. I was able to watch it on Netflix streaming, I suggest you do the same, it was pretty entertaining and put some things that have Boston connections into a bigger context, namely the Shepard Fairey vandalism case.

I won't sum up the movie or really even critique it as a film, I just am eager to release some emotions about the content before I take a shower and go to a brunch with real people who are smarter than more thoughtful than me.

Man, art, huh? What do you say? Within eyeshot of me right now is the following art, in my living room. And I am just using art b/c I don't know what else to call it.
> An It's A Wonderful Life movie poster
> a wall scultpure of 9 people riding their bikes
> an old tea blanket (no idea what to call it) from the mid 80s that explains the rules of Cricket to a non-cricket playing country citizen, its ironic and intentionaly confusing
> a painting given to me and Alison as a gift from our friend Josh for our wedding
> a painting made by alison's aunt of Newport, where we were married
> 2 astrological pictures that correspond to me & alisons signs
> I consider the Kermit playing a banjo on a log sittong on our side table art as well

All of those things have particular meaning to Alison & I, we were not driven by any factor besides personal "yes please" on those pieces. When you see people pursuing art, talking about art, wanting art, or creating art for any other reason than a personal piece of joy, it really starts to wear down on you.

Exit Through the Gift Shop is an hour and a half of the other side of art - its a cynical look at artists, and the junk that they create, but mostly how awful people who pursue art for any reason other than personal meaning are. I don't think the movie intended to be that, and if you watch it you may feel completely different, but that's how I saw it.

The first 40 minutes are spent trying to get you to buy into the fact that Street Artists are anything but vandals - they aren't, they are listless litterers with a great deal of talent for the thing they are trying to produce. I wish they were doing something useful like saving the whales or selling sneakers, like me.

To be completely transparent, these guys tried to deface Big Thunder Mountain in Disneyland with their vandalism, and that made me mad, so my judgment probably isn't very viable in this case, but you'll see. They also then made it sound like putting a fake guantanamo bay prisoner near the tracks of Thunder Mt. should be understood by all, and anger by the Disney Land security force was unwarranted.

But anyway, now that I get that out of my system....the rest of the film is the "What is art?" argument, which is a valid one, but it really rests on the fact that those seeking fame, fortune and celebrity the quickest way possible seem to always find the shortest path through art. They either create, like the subject of the flim, or purchase, like the celeb-hungry people who lined up at the art show at the end to purchase assembly line nonsense, created by interns, rather than the artist himself.

The funniest thing about it though is the vitriol that this dude's contemporaries feel towards him. They attack him like he has no right to subvert the whole process - the subject is someone who is taking all the shortcuts to millions, and the fellow vandals he associates with can't handle it. They think their fake names and hooded sweatshirts give them some sort of stamp of approval - as if spraypainting on a public or private building at midnight every night for 7 years builds up some inherent bank of carnival tickets that can later buy you credibility in the real world.

I enjoyed the film. I really did. I found it entertaining, and I don't know if I found it entertaining in the way the filmmakers wanted me to - or if I also took the shortcut and quit on connecting with the subjects early on, so I could poke fun of them later in my blog, but either way I recommend it, and I am not sure how it can be topped by the other 4 nominees - but I should see them before I speak.

Here is a trailer for the film

...Imagination Pavilion...

2011-01-27T12:37:00.000-05:00

My insane love for Disney World is not matched by many of my peers. That's not bragging, I spend most of my life shy about it and don't really like to talk about it with people that I can't really, really trust.

That being said, I know that everyone who has been to Epcot has enjoyed the "jumping water" outside of the Imagination Pavilion. This video really captures why people enjoy it, and it's flat out entertaining.

Enjoy!

...Pop culture concerns...

2011-01-27T11:43:00.001-05:00

I am not going to write a dissertation on all the things in Pop Culture that irk me, because that's not a valuable use of anyone's time, especially my own. However, there are 3 or 4 things going on out there that confound me, and I'd like clarity, although the reason they confound me is that there is no clarity that can come from analysis - trust me, I've analyzed, and there's no clarity. But here are the irk-while events going on.

Birthers: (EDIT, 1:23 PM - Upon comments from Micah & Keely, primarily, I immediately regret writing this. Not in a 'woe is me' kind of way, but more of a 'this is what happens when you do anything without thinking first.' kind of way. I am leaving it up as another reminder that I am a flawed, flawed person. Enjoy!)
I don't have a liberal friend that won't cringe at this section of my post...but I'm really starting to think there is validity to the question here. I don't know, call me crazy, call me a fascist, call me whatever you want, but for those of you who know me, I think you know that I don't think of this whole "where was he born?" thing as a witch hunt. I don't want blood, I just sorta want to know if the process was subverted, and if chaos will ensue.

Let's pretend for a minute Barack Obama was not born in the US. Honestly, the only proof we are working off of here is his word, and the word of his friends. You can choose to believe that. The last Pop Culture Icon President we had was Clinton. He lied about his sex life in every creative way possible. He lied under oath. He lied in the Oval office. He lied, lied, lied. At the time, I remember defending him saying that the question should have never been asked under oath, but I was naive. Of course it should have. This is different though, it's more serious.

Doing the business in the Oval Office is one thing - that act doesn't mean that your Presidency is illegitimate, it means your behavior is awful, and it means your morals are out of whack, but it doesn't mean you had no right to govern in the first place.

Back to pretend land where Obama in fact was born elsewhere...that, under the Constitution of the US, Obama's presidency is illegitimate. As are his Supreme Court appointees, and all the legislation that was signed into law.

I guess what I'm getting at is, in the 2012 Election, the GOP will not let this, "aw, trust us" gig slide. Like it or not, fair or unfair, he will have to prove his place of birth. This reminds me SO MUCH of the movie, The Contender, one of my favorite political dramas ever, consisting of a role that I think may have been Jeff Bridges finest (yes, better than The Dude). In that movie, VP Nominee Laine Hanson had a choice - talk about her romantic past - discuss rumors and innuendo in an open forum, OR not do that. She chose not to, and she won out in the end, because the rumors were unfounded and she didn't want to dignify them with a response.

Will Obama take the same tact? The difference is, he is an elected official and I don't think the public will stand for it. Her fate was a positive one, but she was appointed, not elected, that's the rub.

The liberal argument has been, "Birthers are awful people, who are perpetuating McCarthy-ism and Obama has nothing to prove. This wouldn't be asked of him if his name was Barry O'Bonner, an Irish-Christian self made Republican from Templeton, MA". And they are probably right. Unfortunately, that isn't how politics works, and my personal opinion is Obama is in deep trouble unless he produces paperwork.

This is when we'll know it's all over, and it's coming soon, if it hasn't happened already. When the liberal argument shifts from what I wrote above, to "well, it doesn't matter anyway, he is inspirational, and the rule is DUMB!"

Get ready for it.

Glee v. Skins:
I have a mixed audience here, so I'll keep it PG-13, or at the most, NC-17. Wait, which is worse, NC-17 or R? I think R. I really don't know though. As you may have seen, MTV's Skins is in a boatload of trouble. Everyone is up in arms and upset about the possibility of flat out child-pornography, which we all know is MTV's hope - to get to a place where they are flat out accused and sued of it. They are the Larry Flynt of TV, and they want to be, and so does America. America wanted them to show child porn. I am not kidding.

Anyway, they are in trouble because the children on that show are depicted in realistic ways performing acts deemed as sexual by the FCC, and anybody with common sense. Okay, got it, I agree, that shouldn't be on TV, there's no place for it for public consumption, and it's not right.

But what confuses me is that everyone is okay with Glee, a show that is a permanent cash cow, a show that is generating numbers through the roof, that depicts people who are acting as children, performing and singing about acts that are gratuitously sexual. Yes, the difference is those actors are above 18, but they are playing children, sophomores in High School in some cases, and they are talking about things that I know Sophomores talk about - but is it Glee's job to depict it?

You can have the argument that we are too rigid as a society, that there shouldn't be these laws in the first place, but there are the laws, and they do exist, and I can't figure out why Skins loses advertisers, while Glee has advertisers and talent begging to be a part of it.

The Recovery of Rep. Giffords:
Nothing that has happened so far in the recovery of Rep. Giffords has alarmed me too much. There is not a person of sound mind that is doing anything but pulling for her physical and mental recovery from what obviously was a tragedy - a horrific act of a lone insane person. Politics aside, this story is covered in sadness, and Loughner did basically everything he could to sound every alarm within earshot of basically everyone he knew that this was going to result in danger, if not death.

The act and the motivations of the act aside, I want this woman to recover in peace. I am not sure why her Husband wanted to be on TV to talk about her story - his interview on Nightline or Dateline or whatever it was was very respectful, well done, and he is obviously a compassionate and warm man. I respect him and their story a lot.

Maybe it's for symbolism - you can't be a Politician or an Astronaut without understanding and overvaluing symbolism - but that image of them with the sun setting or rising or whatever, with him staring into her face while she lays on a hospital bed in Arizona, it just felt wrong, and I can't say why.

I want her to recover in peace - if she wants to rise to a political post again, I wish her all the best, I want her to do anything she wants, I just cringe a bit at the coverage of this recovery - because the bottom line is that the news cycle can't do anything with tact, and certainly doesn't have her best interest in mind, and I hope it all plays out in the most level-headed way possible.

...A Brutal Reality...

2011-01-17T10:39:00.000-05:00

2004 Patriots, 14-2 and win the Super Bowl
2005 Patriots, 10-6 and lose to the Broncos in Div. Playoff Rounds
2006 Patriots, 12-4 and lose to the Colts in the Conf. Championship
2007 Patriots, 16-0 and lose to the Giants in whatever
2008 Patriots, 11-5 and Brady gets hurt - miss the playoffs
2009 Patriots, 10-6 and get blown out by the Ravens, at home.
2010 Patriots, 14-2 and get beat bad in the Div. Playoff Round

The Steelers have won 2 Super Bowls in that time, and are working towards a 3rd.

I know Brady had a run that was unbelievable, and he is a great QB, but a Steelers win, with Ben coming off of the offseason he had, really may be vastly more impressive than Brady's run.

How many years can a team fall short and the Coach & QB are still called the greatest?

...Top 3 Guys In Sports I Wish Would Disappear...

2011-01-14T09:23:00.001-05:00

Here are the 3 guys in Sports I wish would disappear - this isn't a list of the 3 guys I like the least - Rex Ryan will not be on this list, for example, despite the fact that I think it's possible I find him to literally be the worst.

I think if you want a Rex Ryan metaphor, here is a quick clip that explains how I feel about Rex Ryan. In this video, Jack Skellington is Bradykid, Oogie Boogie is Rex Ryan, and Santa's foot at the end is Danny Woodhead.

It's the unravelling that I really like. This list isn't a list of guys I only dislike - it's a list of guys that I dislike, but also I feel they detract, rather than add, to the glory and glamour of sports. Rex is a buffoon, but my argument would be that as a villain, he added more to this NFL season than he took away. These guys below are all about subtraction.

Here are the 3 guys in Sports I'd really like to just see disappear.

Craig Sager - It isn't his wardrobe choices that put him on this list, it's just about everything about him. I get frustrated when Bjork shows up at the Oscars wearing a dead swan and people say that she is the "worst dressed" - because she is obviously trying to dress like a maniac. That's what Sager is doing here, except he is forgetting he isn't part of the show at all. At least Bjork made "Dancer in the Dark," and was incredible. Sager offers nothing. Literally nobody would notice if he was gone, and he is pretty much on par with all sideline reporters, in all sports. The only difference is Sager draws unnecessary attention to himself with his clothes, and TNT encourages it.

Bud Selig - If you truly read through his legacy, he not only stands out as someone who has mismanaged the sport, but also someone who seems to have the scruples of the aforementioned Oogie Boogie Man. His early legacy is pushing Fay Vincent out of the seat of Commissioner for his own personal gain, reinstating George Steinbrenner's lifelong ban (a ban people often forget even happened), as well as trying to force the Expos and Twins out of the league, illegally, and settling a giant lawsuit after realizing it was a mistake. He was at the helm when the league was brought to it's knees with a labor stoppage in '94, and closed his eyes as tight as possible during the reign of steroids. Now we look back on it, the steroids era is as comical and farcical as the Frank Drebbin as Ump portions of the Naked Gun. (I've posted that video here before, so I won't do it again). He ruined baseball for me, personally, and after he goes I'll consider giving it another shot.

Rick Reilly - I was trying to think if the third would be a player, or a reporter, but I think making it a player would be unfair. Players are players, and their personalities aren't the most important thing - you could argue they aren't important at all. I don't consider Craig Sager a reporter, he is literally a clown, and Selig is a businessman, whose ethics and output have left us all to question his personality. The third is Rick, someone who is at the point in his career where he is writing fluff pieces, but making sure that the awards he won when he produced real journalism are in the byline for these fluffies. His latest article pushed me over the edge.

I may come off as someone who likes Jay Cutler, and to be honest I don't really have an opinion. I often think at times he looks disinterested and I don't think he is a Super Bowl winning QB - his body language is confusing, but I am not on his team, and they did go 12-4, and I have some friends who are athletes who are maniacs (Hot Kyle, anyone?) but I'd put him on any team of mine for the rest of my life, he's my guy, and I am sure Jay is someone's guy.

But Rick Reilly is also a metaphor for all the sports journalism out there - folks who have nothing better to write about except sports where people literally die (Steam Room Competitions) and pictures on their books of people putting things in their pants. Rick isn't interested sports, Rick is interested in Dolla Dolla Billz. Loving money in itself doesn't bother me, but doing under the guise of my beloved Sports Journalism world is offensive to me

Do you have a list?

...iPhone to Verizon...

2011-01-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

I got the iPhone the first week it came out, back in '07 I think it was. I think it was '07, wasn't it? Anyway, I didn't wait in lines, but I did go maybe 3 or 4 days later and bought it.

It changed my life, and frankly it changed all of our lives. iPads, Tablets, Netbooks, and the expectations of smart phones in general were blasted up into a billion bits and reformed by the technology breakthrough that was the iPhone.

The first 12 months of owning it, I loved it beyond belief. No need to go into detail, but it was incredible. But then, as the newer versions were released, and features were enhanced, more and more folks bought the phone, and the first thing I started to notice was my service getting worse and worse.

The principle that more people on a network the same size means a more downgraded and slow network, it makes sense. This past summer, I really came to the conclusion that I cannot own the iPhone anymore. It was something that wasn't manageable in my life anymore, and the network was so slow, and so unreliable, and I couldn't make a call without a 65% chance of the call being dropped.

Advance to today, and the news about Verizon getting iPhone looks more official than ever, and I have the following emotions:

Happiness for fellow Verizon subscribers, however, for those who use GMail and Google Calendars, I cannot imagine why you'd choose to avoid the Droid.
Joy that AT&T is going to be visited by an angry ghost that will steal all of its non-contracted subscribers, about 80% of those who have 6 mos. or less on their contracts, and about 50% of the rest of the people to Verizon.
Fear that my perfectly pristine, 100% connected, never a dropped call network will go through the same fate as the '08-'09 phase of the AT&T 3G network.

Verizon may have convinced everyone that their network is inherently better, but the world of Apple hasn't come in full force and shown how quickly the inundation and overpopulation of a network can really put a wrench in the gears.

I love my Droid X, I have no reason but to have faith in Verizon, but I am at the same time cautiously optimistic when I say, "I really hope my network doesn't suffer the same fate as AT&T's 3G did."

...Quick NFL Playoff Post...

2011-01-07T10:52:00.002-05:00

Just for fun, and clearly not as an expert, and clearly not for betting purposes, this is what I think will happen in this weekend’s NFL Games. I am not going to get into reasons why, I will just list what I think the #1 factor of the game will be – not coaching, just player(s).

Jets @ Colts – Colts win by 10, Manning has essentially zero issues.

Saints @ Seahawks – Saints win in a squeaker, and just like every Seahawks game it is beyond painful to watch.

Ravens @ Chiefs – Ray Rice is a no-show, Chiefs win by a TD

Packers @ Eagles – Packers win, they continue the streak of not being down by more than 7 at any point this entire year, and end up winning much like they did in week 17…low scoring affair.

Leaving these matchups:

AFC:

Chiefs @ Patriots

Colts @ Steelers

NFC:

Green Bay @ Atlanta

New Orleans @ Chicago

The cool thing about that is the Patriots, if they make a Super Bowl, have a 50/50 chance of a Super Bowl rematch against a previous opponent (Eagles, Packers, Bears), and 2 of those they lost to, so that’d be neat.

Also, if the Pats advance, they’ll tie the Steelers All-Time for 2^nd most Super Bowl appearances, and be only 1 behind Dallas.

...Orton & Cutler...

2011-01-05T09:50:00.000-05:00

Back in April of '09, Cutler & Orton were in a deal.

With the draft picks being made, the deal ended up being:

Jay Cutler to the Bears
Kyle Orton, Robert Ayers & Richard Quinn (via draft pick trade with Steelers).
Here are some notes about Ayers: http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_17009731
Richard Quinn has 1 catch in 2 years.
Kyle Orton has been benched, in favor of a QB that nobody (but me, for some reason) has any faith in.

The Bears are 11-5, and have the #2 seed in the playoffs.

I wrote a blog post at the time of the trade, basically it was short and sweet, you can see it here.

I am writing this purely to say I was right.

...The West Wing, again...

2011-01-04T12:13:00.000-05:00

Last evening at around 9:45 pm, Alison and I finished The West Wing, seasons 1-7. Prior to us kicking off a West Wing commitment, I had watched seasons 1-4 on Bravo, when it was airing every night for a few years, and then watched Seasons 5, 6 & 7 live as they aired – Alison had never watched an episode.

I was guarded to watch with Al, mainly b/c if she didn’t like I didn’t know how we’d continue as a married couple – what would it say about her if she couldn’t be moved to tears by Margeret or Charlie? What if she didn’t give a crap about CJ Cregg’s love life the way I did – it was a scary prospect.

Thankfully, by a few episodes in, Alison was hooked. I own seasons 1-5 on DVD, we Netflix’d some of season 6 and then borrowed from Wizzy season 7. Last night, the process came to an end, we finished the show.

I won’t spoil any endings, I won’t ruin anything for anyone, but watching it again was incredible, it didn’t have the same progression that I had remembered. I know that seasons 1-3 are incredible TV, and I know that seasons 6 & 7 are just a different show – but I was surprised by how I actually liked 6 & 7 more than 4 & 5 – how the magic seemed to go away for a period, then come back with a vengeance.

I know the backstories of contract disputes, and writer changes, and character plotlines based on things outside of the show, but overall watching this show again solidified my theory that the West Wing was the last incredible Network drama. With the evolution of our TV watching, the fact that with apple tv, google tv, on demand, Netflix and other devices, tv show watching is disappearing in the form that we know it.

Cable networks are dominating the drama genre – Mad Men, The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, Dexter, Weeds…all the critically acclaimed dramas are way outside of the reality-all-or-nothing mentality that is keeping ABC, NBC, CBS & Fox afloat.

The West Wing remains the most powerful TV viewing experience I can remember, and in my top 5 shows of all time, if not top 3.

Finally, here are my superlatives:

Best TV Show Ever: Mad Men

Most Fun Show Ever: Survivor

Funniest Show Ever: Seinfeld

Most Addicted I’ve Been To A Show Ever: The Sopranos

Not Even TV It Was So Good: The Wire

...Our Christmas Decorations...

2010-12-07T00:52:00.006-05:00

We can't put anything up outside because of our condo - so we went bonkers in 2010 inside!

Still have presents to wrap, but this is our Christmas house! Here is the extent of our decorations, besides the Christmas Houses which I have a video of, below.

And here is a video of our Dickens' Village houses. This was the first video I ever made on iMovie with captions and music, it was fun to test, I obviously want to do this in bigger/better ways in the future.

...is it okay to laugh???

2010-12-03T23:46:00.003-05:00

Just so you know, this is about sports.

Within the last 5 days, there has been 2 separate stories about pro athletes having fun while losing, and while the contexts were very different, the crux of the conversation is the same.

Here are pertinent clips from the Arizona Cardinals Derek Anderson's laughing, then the following press conference:

and

Then last night during the sports debacle known as the Cavs/Heat matchup brought some of its own "too much fun" controversy. I have copied the URL of the story that is really scathing here

So the issue is this: Is it okay for players to laugh while they're losing. I have heard multiple arguments this week, but they are both flawed, and I'll explain why. The first story I heard was the "why it is okay to laugh while you're losing" story, from an NFL Hall of Fame Website story about Joe Montana:

A humorous example of his poise under pressure occurred in Super Bowl XXIII against the Cincinnati Bengals. Trailing 16-13 with 3:20 left in the game, the 49ers had the ball on their own eight-yard line.

"Some of the guys seemed more than normally tense," Montana recalled, "especially Harris Barton, a great offensive tackle who has a tendency to get nervous." As usual, Montana was just focusing on the situation, how far they had to go and how much time was left. Just then he happened to spot the late actor John Candy in the stands. "Look" he said, 'isn't that John Candy." It was hardly what his teammates expected to hear in the huddle with the Super Bowl on the line. But it definitely broke the tension. "Everybody kind of smiled, and even Harris relaxed, and then we all concentrated on the job we had to do."

And then there's the "winner's don't find losing funny" go-to guy I think of, Tom Brady. This is Tom Brady's postgame after the Jets loss earlier this year, and you can see it in his body language whenever they are struggling, he hates losing so much:

So now you have all the info, and I still haven't said anything yet. I guess my first point is that we are talking about 3 groups of people in the first 2 clips:
1. The horrible Arizona Cardinals
2. The horrible Cleveland Cavaliers
3. The Underachieving Miami Heat

1 & 2 are easy - the fact that Derek Anderson is laughing has nothing to do with their success or failures. The only reason this is a story is because it was on Monday Night Football, and an NFL Network exists, which needs 24/7 programming.

The Cavaliers were snakecharmed by Lebron for the last 7 years. They were a group that played magical regular seasons and honestly didn't stand a chance of winning. The fact that they were (or weren't) joking with Lebron during the game is not the disease - it is the symptom. They have never been really coached before this year (Mike Brown), and they were led by someone who is proving to be literally the biggest egomaniac in the history of modern sports.

You know a person is deplorable when I agree with Reggie Miller's "the hole has been dug deeper" sentiment.

I guess what I'm really getting at is that in the Montana excerpt, we see that levity, fun, laughter, motivation techniques of any kind are okay if employed by winners. They aren't if they are employed by losers. That's not anything new, there just isn't a consistency in diagnosis is my main problem. If the 49ers lost the Super Bowl to the Bengals that year, a really good Bengals team I may add, would Montana have been vilified for making a joke about John Candy to Harris Barton? No, for 2 reasons. 1, there was no NFL Network/ESPN/Podcasts/Youtube to focus on that aspect, and 2, Joe simply knows how to lead.

It isn't in Tom Brady's DNA to joke about a loss, but it is in Joe Montana's to joke as a motivation tool. We don't need or care to know what is in Daniel 'Boobie' Gibson's DNA with the Cavs, or with Derek Anderson's, because in the grand scheme of things they are role players, players of no consequence, and don't need to be measured in these conversations. They are not relevant.

All of this is not relevant. A leader is a leader, a winner is a winner, and ultimately measure athletes on championships, which is a biproduct of guts and determination. Sometimes humor is involved in the chemistry too, but that chemistry has long passed Derek Anderson and the remaining Cleveland Cavaliers windows.

...Potter Movies...

2010-11-29T19:21:00.003-05:00

I haven't seen the 7th movie yet - and I'm sad it's broken up into 2 parts. I wish we still had the ability to sit through an epic 3-3.5 hour movie like we once did. Movies like Giant, Laurence of Arabia, and Gone With The Wind were partially what they were because they were such an emotional commitment from start to finish...

But that isn't my point, I mostly wanted to just rank how I feel about the Potter movies after rewatching 1-5 in the past week:

1. HP & The Prisoner of Azkaban
2. HP & The Sorcerer's Stone
3. HP & The Order of the Phoenix
4. HP & The Goblet of Fire
5. HP & The Chamber of Secrets

As far as reading experience goes, this is how I rank all 7 (in terms of how much I enjoyed reading them, while reading them:

1. HP & The Sorcerer's Stone
2. HP & The Prisoner of Azkaban
3. HP & The Goblet of Fire
4. HP & The Half Blood Prince
5. HP & The Deathly Hallows
6. HP & The Order of the Phoenix
7. HP & The Chamber of Secrets

...CBS Crew...

2010-11-28T19:50:00.003-05:00

I was driving home tonight from Football Sunday at Bree & Tori Tavares' house, and I heard the press conference that is shown a handful of seconds into this clip attached. My reaction was, "that is an awesome clip - this guy is pissed, he is upset, and he cares about the fact that he let the team down."

We were watching the Bills game live when Johnson dropped that pass, and I am not going to lie, I laugh and I shout when a guy drops a pass, b/c that's my right as a fan. I am allowed to have those emotions. However, if I were a broadcaster, I'd like to think I'd control myself. I don't see myself thinking differently if I had a different role, or if I made millions mocking current NFL players like the dimwits in this clip do.

I wanted to post the press conference to my twitter/facebook b/c I really think this Bills team is awesome - Justin asked if they were a playoff team if they didn't screw around at QB/RB early in the year like they did, and the fact that they lose to good teams by so few points is evidence they are not far at all from being exceptional.

When I searched youtube , I found the clip of the CBS clan mocking Stevie, and acting as if they have never suffered, never felt bad, never showed an emotion other than flat out cockiness, and in a few moans and groans and giggles, showed they have no idea what humility is.

Dan Marino, Bill Cowher, Shannon Sharpe, and Boomer Esiason. If you have followed football all your life, or in the last 30 years, you'd be able to answer this question very quickly, without much thinking: Would you have any desire to spend 30 minutes in a room with any or all of these men? Your answer would be an emphatic, "NO!" Only Steelers fans, Bengals fans, Dolphins fans, and fans of complete A-holes would appreciate what these guys have contributed to the league.

Marino is the Charles Barkley of the NFL - the guy who may have been the best to never win - except nobody longs for his lost championship. People wish Barkley won, and appreciate what he gives to the game now. Marino detracts from it. Cowher & Boomer aren't even worth talking about. Also, for some reason, refs refused to call a false start on him when basically on every snap he moved his right leg before the ball was ever snapped, b/c he was too old and slow to play by the rules, and too arrogant to think the rules applied to him.

Cowher is a maniac who can't control his saliva, and had an up and down career that was rejuvinated by a Super Bowl victory in what was not only the most boring Super Bowl ever, but also the Super Bowl victory against the least threatening opponent of all time.

Shannon Sharpe...I don't even know what to say, I don't know what kind of person you need to be to think, "That Sharpe is an admirable person...I really respect him." First of all, he is a murderer of proper diction - an assassin to the English language, but I won't even hold that against him b/c he spent the first 38 years of his life perfecting pass-catching, blocking, and running his mouth...but the list of people in this world who think they are fantastic because they were near John Elway is insufferable, and continues to grow.

And Jim Brown was once a great voice in the NFL, but I fear that TV producers and the CBS "Show" of NFL football have stripped him of integrity, thought and real insight. Instead he is relegated to be the ringleader of a circus whose clowns have clearly taken control.

Stevie Johnson should be criticized for dropping 5 passes, including the bomb to win the game. He is a pro, and deserves scorn for failing on a big stage like OT against a perennial powerhouse like the Steelers. But he should be applauded for caring, for wanting to win, for voicing concern that he let teammates down, and he doesn't need a collection of has-been's who falsely think they played in a better league, and whose only validation in life is to constantly attempt to drag down the young stars who they know will soon trump their importance in the most powerful sports league in America.

...Reggie Jackson v. Frank Drebin...

2010-11-23T11:46:00.005-05:00

I am going to do the impossible, the thing that nobody says anyone can, or should do…and I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it is actually possible that both sides are right on an issue…(GASP!)

So here it is, Thanksgiving weekend and everyone is travelling. On a side note, how do people travel on Thanksgiving at the airport? They jack ticket prices up so high I cannot imagine spending that kind of dough to fly anymore. It was always expensive, but over the years, things have gotten nuts. Trust me, I follow these things. I go on kayak for fun, I am not kidding. I think looking at flight prices is interesting.

Anyway, millions flock to the airport and have to go through security, and every single one of them is inconvenienced, without question. The insane rules that seemingly make no sense actually may make no sense. Some airports require you to do certain things, and we’re more strict on domestic flights than other countries are with flights coming into the US, so you have to ask yourself, “what the hell are we doing?!”

People are freaking out b/c a scanner can tell if you have big feet or not, but whatever, at some point you’d think that looking at thousands of body-scans an hour would cease being interesting, and personal freedoms in this sense are under attack only in the mind of the person being scanned – its sort of a “get over yourself” type of thing. But I get it, I see how it’s something uncomfortable, and I understand that the inconvenience of it all is there, I wouldn’t argue that.

However, there are a few things. First, flying isn’t a right. Don’t fly, then. Don’t get on a plane if you don’t like the rules. I say this over and over again, consumers in this country think they are slaves to the developer/seller of the goods – we aren’t! WE HAVE ALL THE CONTROL!!!!

If you don’t like what airlines are asking of you, you don’t need to write a letter or protest violently, you simply can stop using the airline and convince your friends to do the same. It’s that easy. It really is. Short of that, then what you’re protesting is a personal dislike for a policy, and why would a Company change it’s policy b/c a vocal minority doesn’t like the policy? It has to grow to the majority stage.

But beyond the annoyance of it all, and beyond the fact that people are acting as if they can expect 100% convenience from every single thing they do in their lives, I feel like the bigger issue is that we are convincing ourselves we are stopping the next 9/11 from happening because we make me put my laptop in a separate bin.

These policies aren’t secret, we know what they are, and so do the terrorists. The people who orchestrated 9/11 weren’t aliens who guessed right and got “lucky”, they knew our culture, our rules, our methods, and understood how to circumnavigate the system. They will do the same next time, if there is a next time.

Yes, we’re making it more difficult for the terrorists who aren’t skilled to get things done. But the TSA regulations, in my view, aren’t going to prevent a years-long, well devised, intricate plan from happening. I am sorry if that makes people uncomfortable or angry, I just don’t see how pat-downs will change anything except catch the obvious terrorists.

At the end of the day, it reminds me of The Naked Gun. Watch this scene, and my view is Frank Drebbin is TSA (from about minute 4:20 on) and our National Security Administration. Reggie Jackson is the next terrorist, and #20 on the Angels with the nail file on the mound is the underwear bomber or the unsuccessful buffoon in Times Square. Sure, we’ll catch the obvious, but good old fashioned luck is the only way to stop Reggie from poppin’ out of the pile and attempting to kill the queen.

...Who does this?

2010-11-17T12:20:00.001-05:00

The Fishers do, that's who...

...By Month....

2010-11-17T00:25:00.014-05:00

I am not yet tired. That's bad. So, to fill the time, I'm going to post a year-deep retrospective: The most important thing that happened to me this year, each month. It only counts if I have video and/or pictures of it. Keep that in mind.

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

...Thanksgiving Menu...

2010-11-16T23:54:00.003-05:00

I think this is where we stand for Thanksgiving. There may be changes, but it's going to be a GOOD ONE!

...Vanilla Sky...

2010-11-15T15:54:00.004-05:00

Stripped of all expectation, and 10 years (rather than a few months) removed from my personal Almost Famous euphoria, I think that Vanilla Sky is actually a very, very good movie.

That's all I got.

...Broadway Shows...

2010-09-30T19:08:00.002-04:00

The other night Alison and I saw Wicked in Boston, it was the 3rd time I have seen Wicked, and it was the 3rd time I saw it in Boston. I think I don't mind seeing it again and again because each time I do a new song strikes me as a real moment in the show - and that could be driven primarily by the characters and the way the actors and actresses sing each song. Not sure exactly, but the first time I saw it, it was obviously 'Defying Gravity' that stood out - given it probably is one of the most powerful songs from the last 10 years of Broadway, but I'll get to that later.

This time around it was 'As Long As You're Mine', no idea why. I listen to it now and I am not particularly moved by it, but I think it was just a moment where there wasn't a lot of action on the stage, and being in the 2nd row it was exciting to see 2 people act on stage, close up. It is a good song, but I can 100% guarantee that it won't be my favorite song.

This is not the point of why I am writing this. I am writing this because it struck me on my ride home from work tonight that out of all of the males in the universe that I am either friends with, or even know on any level, I can't think of anyone who knows, or cares more, about Broadway than me. That isn't a statement about how much I know in regards to Broadway, I know a minuscule amount - and I do care about the shows and the actors, and plays, etc...but not as much as someone who really cares - like Alison, for example.

Here is, in chronological order, the 10 most important events for me in regards to seeing Broadway style shows:

1. Early 80's - My mom was in a show - Sweet Charity, maybe, which was performed by the local theater group my family was a part of. And I remember specifically being very confused by her makeup, the new person she had become, and I remember not liking it. It wasn't her, it was her character, but it wasn't my Mom, and it struck me as odd. I was intrigued by this whole process as she continued to be in other plays, including Hannah & Her Sisters, which I was older for and understood she was acting, but still didn't like that she had to cry and be upset in the play. This whole process - me understanding what acting was, and watching people be a part of it, honestly scared me a little bit. I can't explain it, but I was intrigued, from afar.

2. Mid 80's - Seeing Annie somewhere in Boston with my parents. I don't remember a single thing about the show itself, or even really caring about the show after it was over. But what I do remember is that everything felt so big, so exciting and so energetic. People had tickets and entered a theater like a movie theatre, but they were buzzing - it wasn't like a movie, people were dressed nicer and the stairs were steeper and it was just large. I remember being impressed, which was a better feeling than being intimidated, like I explained above.

3. 1991 - I saw Cats in London with my parents, and without question it was literally one of the most depressing and disappointing things I have ever seen. Cats was all the rage, and I was definitely supposed to love this show, and I think it was literally impossible to love this show. I remember thinking, "This is Broadway, and people love Broadway, this is awful, how can this all make sense?" Now I am older, I still am baffled by the fact that Cats was a big deal, it was fairly horrible from what I can tell.

4. 1994 - I saw Tommy in Boston with Mike Baird, Rebecca Alukonis and Melissa St. Croix, and it was completely moving. There are a few things that stand out from this. First, I missed Drew Bledsoe's 45 completions in 70 attempts performance v. the Vikings during this show, but I recall weighing that against the show and recognizing that it wasn't a big deal to me. I was not upset.

I also remember from the opening with "Sparks", the whole show was LOUD! It was energetic, it was phenomenal. This was also my first major exposure to The Who, so I don't know which was more important, but I left this thinking, "I could see more of this kind of thing". I didn't, for a long, long time, actually - but at the same time, the experience of being at a musical and being invested was thrilling to me.

5. 1997 - Riverdance came to Boston and while this isn't a Broadway show, necessarily, at the time with the limited exposure I had to the theater, this counted. It was important to me because I felt like I was regressing towards my mean - I was seeing enough on the positive and negative side of things, and I was starting to formulate an opinion. I think that Riverdance was critical to not only my theater appreciation, but also in my honing of my bull&hit gauge. And this show was 100% BS. Flatley later admitted he pumped in sound, b/c, after all, how could the actors make all that noise organically, he asked? Good question - that's why we were all intrigued, Oz... I feel venom towards this guy, and I had no desire to go to a show for a long time after this.

6. 2004 - My theater life changed significantly when I met Alison and was able to have access to shows, geographically, b/c Alison's parents lived so close to the city. I hadn't yet seen a show on Broadway, and the notion was exciting to me, even though the idea of seeing a show wasn't that exciting for the show's sake. I had listened to the Tommy soundtrack until the disc was cracked, literally. But beyond that, I wasn't driven to go anywhere to see a show.

In 2004 Alison took me to see Avenue Q on Broadway, and it worked. I was hooked. Pretty much instantly. The quality of a Broadway show, from the performers to the sets, to the theaters, all of it hooked me. But seeing Avenue Q is one thing, that's easy, its funny and light, but what about some real, hard-hitting Broadway. Would that work on me? Yes, it would.

7. 2007 - I was lucky enough to see a first run of Mary Poppins on Broadway, whose stage, set, scenery, singing and spectacle officially turned me into someone who 100% loved Broadway. I love it. I love the music and the way the songs drag you from one segment to the other. I love how you never know what the next scene will "sound" like - you don't get that out of movies. Unless you're talking about revolutionary and groundbreaking film making, you have to live through the feeling, no matter what.

Don't get me wrong, I love movies, obviously, but Mary Poppins was the first time I can remember being in a theater, and aside from Tommy's audio power, I felt in awe. I felt small, and I felt like I was watching something real happen in front of me - a coordination of a great deal of time & effort, and I appreciated it.

8. 2008 - Like any other person who had a friend or a relative, I had heard of Rent by 2008. The movie came out in 2006, and I knew a vague idea of the plot - these lazy screwball drugbags had AIDS and blamed the world for it - that's what I thought at least, and I'm not sure I'm too wrong about it now.

More literally, in the summer of '06 I was staying at a boutique hotel literally right next door to Rent, and at about 10.15 or so, I noticed that if I listened I could hear the sound of the show next door - the cheering, clapping and shouting. It pains me to know I had a free night in NYC and I was feet, within earshot, of the show and didn't see it. We all have regrets.

But I had steered clear of it - it was an intimidating thing at this point - a show everyone knew and loved, and if I really wanted to be embrace the Broadway community, I felt a great sense of pressure to know and love this show as well. In 2008 when the show closed, a decision was made to show the last performance in movie theaters, with some editing. I decided this was the right time to see it - on my home turf a movie theater a few miles down the road.

Up to this point, I think it's safe to say I hadn't been as moved by a collection of music for a relatively short span of time, with the only exceptions being Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road, STP's Purple and Radiohead's OK Computer. The performance didn't have the original cast, and it just was on the screen, but I absolutely felt like I was there, and while I don't feel as strongly about it now as I did then, I could see how this really gripped an entire generation and moved people to love Rent. These songs are completely etched into my head at this point, and I know I'll listen to them for the rest of my life.

Since this film, I saw Rent live on stage in Boston and I saw a local production in Newton as well - I'm very much looking forward to seeing it in a rebirth in 20 or 30 years as well.

9. 2009 - If Rent gave license to the world to write a Broadway production that not only aimed for youth, but also for non-white youth, and aimed for an audience it wasn't going to attract in mid-town Manhattan on an 8x a week basis, In The Heights was a show that took firm grasp of that invitation and RSVP'd with force.

There are 4 to 6 songs in this that I consider masterpieces - perfect songs, but also amazing elements to a very rich story of friendship and meaning and place in time, importance in history. Thinking locally and effecting the people closest to you - these kinds of values are so magnificent and no show I have ever seen took such a stranglehold of your emotions like In The Heights has done for me. I saw it on Broadway with a good portion of the Original Cast, including the lead, who is the lifeblood of the show.

The finale song, actually the final 3, as well as the 2 songs leading to Intermission are powerful, emotional songs that tell such a complete story - totally remarkable. In the Heights is my favorite show I've ever seen - it'll be a movie someday and I hope people see it, but it's the kind of show that literally makes you want to be a better person and care more, with completely beautiful music.

10. 2010 - "You get everyone addicted to your coffee, and off you go," is a line from In The Heights - during one of the emotional finale songs, and it sort of sums up how I feel about Broadway and musicals at this point. I am not shutting the door on possibilities of good songs, and powerful stories. Next To Normal was a tremendous show, but it had a soft 2nd act, and I am sure I'll love Fela and Memphis when I see them, and that kind of looking forward is great, but I also look back.

Wicked opened the same year as Avenue Q, and while I don't regret seeing Avenue Q within it's first 12 months, I am pained by the fact that Kristen Chenoweth and Idina Menzel were on stage for Wicked, and I didn't even come close to seeing it. It wasn't even on my radar. I don't have regret like this with anything else in my life. I cared about sports so early that I didn't miss anything I could logically see - but the powerhouse performances by IM and KC are something I can only see glimpses of on Youtube (which I can't stand) and in documentaries.

Seeing Wicked now is like watching the NFL with the replacement players - the real power and emotion and music comes from the original cast. That being said, I saw the performance the other night and it made me hopeful that not only is the musical alive and well, but it can work in Boston, and if the songs are right, it can work anywhere.

I am of the opinion that the performers in Manhattan's musical are the most talented people in the world in terms of music. I wish those people were the heroes in terms of talent. I can't stress enough - you need to find a way, the dime, the time, everything, to see a show you think you'll like in New York.

They put it all on the line 8 times a week and go out there, live, and sing to the best of their abilities which are great.

I don't know what it is about me, as a 33 year old Male, that makes me so interested and passionate about Broadway and what it has to offer, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. I guess I sacrifice things, but I am not sure what? There is always room for entertainment in my life, and I am glad Broadway is taking up a large %.

...Mr. Parks...

2010-09-17T14:17:00.005-04:00

I don't know Mr. Parks at all, but this is a great remembrance about him in today's Boston Globe. I don't even know if I know anyone who knows him, I may, he was at UMass while I was there.

It's funny because something like this shouldn't strike me emotionally, but reading what she had to say about her band leader I was immediately drawn to my UMass organized sport memories, which always come in the form of my playing days on Zoodisc.

Long passed are the days where I try to justify what UMass Ultimate meant to me, from an athletic or commitment standpoint. I am very much over trying to convince people we took this thing seriously, and we cared, and we were emotional about it.

I had fun with a few teammates this week remembering a brotherly-love type argument I got into with a teammate, and it was hilarious to look back, and it was so heated and passionate at the time, we cared a hell of a lot about that team.

But the point of this post was to recognize a UMass legend - he deserves it, but also to recognize my teammates I played with at UMass, who ultimately became some of my best friends.

The real point of my post is this: I completely forget that having friends you can admire, respect, look up to and draw inspiration from is something I can never take for granted, I'm so completely humbled to be surrounded by some of the best people I could imagine, and while some people only get that type of guidance and leadership from coaches, band leaders, bosses, etc, I get it whenever I need it from my friends - Minutemen, or Lakers alike...

...Coach K v. Wojo. Wojo loses...

2010-09-10T22:50:00.003-04:00

I have copied an entire article written by Adrian Wojnarowski about Coach K and his comments about the Russia/USA game in 1972. I generally really like Adrian's articles, but I think this one is unmitigated crap.

I love Coach K so much right now, for 3 reasons: (1) He is doing an amazing job with this team USA, and he did an amazing job last time. I find him fascinating and brilliant as a coach. (2) Coach K has been so loyal to Duke, which isn't a pre-requisite for my respect, but it is something I can respect, therefore, he wins. (3) He's fair, and respectful, and everyone knows that about him.

I didn't grow up liking Coach K, I actually think I disliked Duke, so my defense of Coach K really comes from a place of earned respect, and in home-town loving sports world, I honestly think that liking someone from outside your state, your home town, removed from your favorite team, then you are an anomaly, and your opinion should carry weight. Therefore, I'm going to argue with everything Wojo says in the article below. His text is in bold, my comments are italicized.

ISTANBUL – In the end, it was the kind of desperate stunt that comes from a coach holding too little faith in his team, perhaps too little preparation. Behind the cover of some kind of nationalistic stand, Mike Krzyzewski used the platform of the world championships to impugn the integrity of a good coach’s name. In his haste to exploit that old American basketball gash, Krzyzewski created a fresh boogeyman for a post-Cold War game between the United States and Russia. David Blatt, American traitor.

I firmly believe this is 100% bullcrap. If Coach K was Ochocinco or T.O. or Ozzie Guillen, I'd maybe believe it, but this attack of Coach K in the first paragraph goes so harshly against what we really know of him - I automatically start reading this thinking Wojo has an agenda, and that agenda is likely that he is upset that since the free-agent orgy this summer, Wojo is getting ignored. Welcome to working for Yahoo! Wojo, you aren't top priority in the readers minds...

That’s the implication for an American-Israeli coaching the old evil empire’s national team, and that’s a load of garbage. No one takes these national coaching jobs for simply national pride, but also the perks of privilege, access and residual gains. Team USA plays as much for Nike and David Stern’s imperialistic designs as it does the red, white and blue.

I don't even know what he is talking about here - I don't think I fully understand if he his accusing Coach K of wanting residuals, or Blatt. I cannot figure it out. Coach K had the Lakers job in his hands, he had the Clippers job in his hands, he has had opportunity to have it all. Everything. He consistently has reminded the world that his players are everything, that he fills a role, he has placed ego so low on his priority list - I don't even know where Wojo is coming from here.

Krzyzewski knows that truth, and he went to such a low-brow, low-rent place on the eve of Team USA’s 89-79 victory over Russia that moved the Americans into Saturday’s semifinal against Lithuania.

What Coach K said isn't even that harsh at all - he responded to a question and he accused the "American-Israeli" coach of being Russian. He's lived there for 30 years, and he coaches the Russian team. Coach K knows where Blatt grew up, he is simply referring to the fact that Blatt wants Russia to win, and to act as if the USA/USSR 1972 game is something thats emotionally difficult to deal with - which Blatt did - does require a response of "bullshit", which is what Coach K did.

“We’re friends,” Krzyzewski would say of Blatt as he brusquely marched past a reporter in the hallway outside his news conference. He didn’t want to hear the rest of a question on the subject and kept moving. Krzyzewski stopped for a second, turned around and passed on answering whether he had any regrets or had simply expressed his true belief that a differing perspective on the ’72 Olympic gold-medal game constituted some kind of patriotic treachery.

You gotta love this one. You really do. Wojo admits that Coach K didn't hear the full question, but accuses him of brushing off a "differing perspective." That's like accusing Einstein of being obstinate b/c he didn't disseminate E=MC(squared) via Twitter. You're reaching here, Wojo.

To get past the dogged, undermanned Russians, Krzyzewski riled up that old Russian hate for his players and the public. It sniffed of desperation, but Duke’s coach isn’t taking the chance of becoming the first national coach in history to fail in winning consecutive world championships. Never mind the myth of sportsmanship in international basketball, Krzyzewski used up and spit out a most disposable Blatt.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. First of all, the Russians are in the Quarterfinals of a World Basketball Championship. Nobody, including Coach K, sees them as "dogged" or "undermanned." Coach K says only respectful things of Davidson College in a early November game at Cameron Indoor. He isn't desperate, he isn't positioning Russia, he simply said 1 line, which was about a moment that was painful to an entire sports nation.

"Sportsmanship in international basketball" is exactly what is at the heart of the criminally horrible call, reaction, and celebration by the '72 Russian team. It was a different time - the 1980 US Hockey game was important b/c it was US v. USSR - for a military man like Coach K, those types of things do actually cut deep. Wojo's involvement in the Cold War is probably relegated to reruns of 'Red Dawn'.

Krzyzewski played the patriotism card to his advantage with Team USA, and yet later didn’t want the accountability of its ownership.

Yah, that...or he didn't want to deal with assholes like you, Wojo.

“Hey, I said what I thought, and after that I didn’t get a whole lot of chance to say something,” Blatt said. “I don’t know how much gamesmanship I practiced. But it looks like the [USA] coach jumped on it and used it pretty good. His guys were awfully motivated and so was he.”

Sure, Krzyzewski has a soft spot for the ’72 team, and that’s understandable. His assistant coach, Chris Collins, is the son of Doug Collins. Mike Bantom travels with Team USA in his duties with the NBA league office. I happen to disagree with Blatt, and believe an unjust chain of events occurred that cost the U.S. the gold medal. Still, the U.S. coach, Henry Iba, was too far past his prime, and his antiquated, sluggish style never properly used the athleticism and talent of those Americans. They never should’ve been in a 51-50 death grip with the Russians, but that’s how it went with an icon propped up on the sidelines.

I could write forever about this - on one hand Wojo accuses Coach K of not needing to give his players motivation, b/c they are better than Russia. Then in the next paragraph he trashes the 1972 Coach b/c the game was close - and that the "undermanned" and perhaps even "dogged" Russian team made it a game.

I also find it funny because he actually gives Coach K his due - he explains that it may actually be a wound, which could leave to a relatively benign comment like the one Coach K made. I am totally confused as to why he is so uspet with him!

They weren’t the first Olympians to get robbed and they wouldn’t be the last. Eventually, reason should’ve taken over and they should’ve gone back and accepted those silver medals. This 38-year blood war with that loss has gone on long enough, and the Americans would’ve set a terrific example had they done what they would’ve told their kids to do: Be gracious, accept the medal and move on.

Thank god we've identified the person who is able to tell us when people should get over things or not. He should thumb through his handbook and realize that the level of anger Coach K had in his comment warranted, perhaps, a tweet by Wojo, but not an entire article. He is overreacting, and now I am too. Do you see what you started here?

Yes, the ’72 saga strikes a human chord within the American basketball establishment. In an Olympics where Israeli athletes were murdered, the loss of a basketball tournament remains an ache for the ages. Before the quarterfinals game on Thursday, an inquisitive Chauncey Billups (notes) carried his breakfast over to Bantom and probed him on his memories of that fateful day in Munich.

So is it okay for Coach K to be mad, or not? I don't get it?

Before they left the dining room, Billups told Bantom that nothing Team USA would do on Thursday would make that game right for him again, and yet maybe they could let him leave the arena with something of a smile.

Bantom didn’t need a victory over the Russians – not as badly as Krzyzewski did on Thursday. He would get it, but not before sacrificing the good name of Blatt. When it was over, Krzyzewski gushed about Blatt’s genius, but that was easy at the game’s end. He had tagged him as a non-American for coaching those Russians, and labels are hard to shake when they come out of the mouth of a Hall of Fame coach. Yes, we’re friends, Coach K said. Friends, indeed. What a desperate, low-rent stunt.

Wojo accused Coach K of not wanting the "accountability of the ownership" of the comment. Seems, to me, he took ownership, and nobody brought more visibility to this comment, and blew it out of proportion as much as Wojo did.

The low-rent stunt here is the slandering of Coach K, who has spent decades working hard, ignoring the notion of legacy, and instead creating one as perhaps the last real sports figure you can admire with no hesitancy.

...Prognosticating...

2010-09-09T09:20:00.002-04:00

At least we all know that Punxatawney Phil is a joke. I mean, we approach the whole process knowing that its just a funny, silly thing that we do to pass the time, a social norm that has grown to entertain and amuse us. That's nice.

Slightly down the ladder in terms of respectable prediction are weatherpeople in general. The countless examples of being flat out wrong far outnumber any examples of useful prediction. Basically their roles in our lives is a function of advertising space on Local News channels - they are not needed, and they essentially should exist to only let us know if there is a hurricane, tornado, or other natural disaster, weather-related, they can warn us of. Anything outside of that is frivolous, but we've accepted them.

And at the bottom of the prediction food chain are sports analysts. These are the worst because their accountability isn't low, it's next to nothing. Who is keeping track of what they say? Besides Justin, Trav & Myself, nobody really ever pays attention to how wrong these guys are basically all the time, yet they continue to predict, and we continue to be entertained by it.

But why are we entertained by it? What does it bring us to hear two "experts" tell me, before the season has even started, that the Packers and Ravens are going to meet in the Super Bowl. Guess what, they aren't. Nobody knows who is going to be in the Super Bowl - in fact, the biggest NFL experts in the Universe only serve to bring their credibility down by selecting a Super Bowl matchup.

This past weekend, Lindsey Davenport was doing analysis for the US Open and when asked who would win between Wozniacki and Sharapova, she shook her head and in true Davenport fashion just said, "I don't do that." That is the most refreshing analysis I think I have ever heard.

"I don't do that," would serve everyone well. Each Sunday for a 1/2 hour before gametime we listen to a collection of unaccountable blowhards (i hate that word, but thats what they are) sit on the sets of ESPN, CBS, NBC, FOX, etc and tell us who will win each game and why. We see their records, usually around or sub .500, and I am sure statistical analysis will show that they are literally worthless. They are a worthless experiment.

I have grown so uncomfortable with the, "so what do you think is going to happen?" question, or the "who is going to win?" question. I don't know. Nobody knows. Everyone. Nobody knows. Lets talk about something else. I am going to start taking the Davenport Approach, as I am coining it...."I don't do that," will be a common phrase you'll hear from me.

Except when it comes to ultimate. I'll take Red Tide over Zebra Muscles any day of the week.

...Variety...

2010-09-03T09:32:00.007-04:00

I too often blog about the NBA. Not that there are rules, but if I want to get the attention of even 30% of my friends, I should talk about other things. I used to talk about politics more, but honestly the social media policy at work is scaring me off of that, as strange as that may sound. Even writing that sentence scares me a little. But I do love me some Big Brother, I really do.

So I figured I'd sorta just rant, Dennis Miller style, about all the different things that have interested me over the past few weeks. I know this is lame, and not articulate, but I'm feeling the urge to just put things down.

Straws

I am not a "They don't make 'em like they used to" kind of guy. I like change, progress, evolution, I like when things go in a different direction. One thing I don't like, however, are straws nowadays. I don't know what it is, if its the material of the paper sheath, or the material of the straw, but straws are harder to open, and they bend/break more easily than they used to.

I interact with straws a few times a week for iced coffee, so this may be a Dunkin Donuts issue, and I cringe that it most likely was a cost-saving measure, dropping the price of straws from .008 cents to .005 cents per straw worldwide, and it results in my crimping 40% of the straws I open and making it so I get equal parts Air and French Vanilla on every sip. This aggression on behalf of Dunkies won't stand.

Actually, it will stand quite easily, I have no leverage.

Nyjer Morgan

This is about baseball, and I'll keep it short, but this guy is bonkers! I don't have an opinion of him personally beyond that, but this guy is going to be my poster child for why throwing at batters is the single biggest nonsense thing in sports. It has no lasting benefit, it doesn't serve any purpose besides perpetuating some kind of false aggression, and it has no place in civilized sports - its like brawling in hockey but with less logic.

Morgan is completely nuts, but the reality is that the pitcher has said he threw at him partially b/c he didn't like that Morgan stole with a lead - that kind of thing drives me crazy. There isn't nearly as much of that in the NBA or NFL as there is in baseball - I swear to gosh so much crap comes out of baseball b/c these guys are playing a boring sport. Anyway, Morgan is crazy, baseball is silly, and fights make me queasy.

Jobs

I saw an analyst this morning on CNN that was saying she was shocked that there hasn't been an uptick in hirings in the marketplace. She said that temporary or part-time/freelance work is increasing, and she was stunned that companies weren't yet offering the full-time benefits route.

This is something that someone in the business has trouble seeing, but some of us outside of the business can see so easily. What business am I referring to? Simply put, the business of Greed.

If you are running a company, and you are driven by getting the shareholders more money, this economic downturn is the greatest thing for you. You have a 2 year built-in excuse for poor performance, which may be justified. Your company is no longer judged by the last 24 months, but by the next 24 months, which is great. As a private company, you have no incentive to increase your workforce - the reality that millions of hard working people need, and want, jobs isn't your responsibility.

Of course companies are hiring freelancers, of course they aren't paying benefits. The reality is there isn't enough work to go around for all of us to sustain our current lives - the myth of being busy at work all the time (for other people, of course) is something that we can't afford to let go of, so we act shocked when corporations can get the same output/input from an employer on 20 hours as they did on 40 hours.

The whole algorithm of what its going to take from a workforce/headcount perspective is changing.

The Mosque

I really don't have any intentions of discussing this beyond the fact that this is one of those times where people who are in charge, the leadership of this country, New York City, and even neighborhood level folks, need to stop considering the voice of every individual and what they think is right, and simply act.

My personal opinion is that Obama should step in, and become more vocal than he ever has been, about his feelings on this, and apply a pressure that has been unseen on the local level, prior to this. I would have the same opinion of G.W. Bush was in office - the person leading this country has to stand for something, and in the absence of standing for something vocally and without question, confusion reigns. Even if I don't agree with what the result is, courage in conviction and believing your own honesty is what matters. What this has all turned into is so sad, so analytically depressing, and it doesn't need to be. Someone either make this thing happen, or not happen, but lets stop dancing.

Dairy Queen

For the past 10 or 12 years or so, I decided to get Blizzards. Probably on average, 1 time per year, I'd get a Blizzard at Dairy Queen. When I was young, they were so unique - candies mixed with delicious-ish ice cream, what can beat that. Cookie Dough, Snickers, M&M's, Reeses...each flavor was so awesome. Then I had Nerds, and it was gross, but I pretended to like it.

Then I tried other flavors, I can't recall what they are, but it was always just "too much"... A blizzard is just "too much."

A few weeks ago I decided to go to my old standby - a combination at Dairy Queen I hadn't gotten since, oh I don't know, 1988? Swirl Soft Serve, cone, cherry dip.

The Blizzard has absolutely nothing on that combo. The Blizzard is auto-tune to The Cherry Dip Swirl's Joni Mitchell. So delicious. The blizzard is dead - its time for everyone else to stop pretending they like it.

Apple TV

In the spirit of fairness, I want to give Apple it's due props on how awesome Apple TV is. I never wanted Apple TV before for a few reasons. (1) It didn't stream HD, which really is a reason to not make a product, but in true Apple form, they made it anyway. (2) Apple TV didn't have a deep enough library, and without the relationship with a company like Netflix, it felt very limiting.

They fixed both those things, and for only $99 bucks we're finally seeing the future of what TV will look like in a tangible way, and that is awesome. I'd be shocked if my house didn't have an Apple TV by October 1.

Mad Men

I can't speak for every show on TV, but right now I watch about 3 shows. I watch Mad Men religiously, I watch Survivor and I watch Hard Knocks. The rest is live sports, or sports highlights programming. If Real Time With Bill Maher is on, I'm all over it.

I know this though, the last 2 weeks of Mad Men have been unbelievable. There is 1 show that comes to mind that was as good as this one late in it's 4th season, and that is The Wire. The Sopranos was good, but had tailed off, and the same goes for The West Wing.

But watching an episode of Mad Men is an education, it reminds me of my film class days, or even my English class days, where an art form was created in a way that gave you license to take leaps, create thoughts, go beyond the notion that "I just need to be entertained." Listen, I have no problem with entertainment, and I have no issue if people only want to watch Reality TV, I won't fault you for it, (unless its Jersey Shore - I fault you for that) but for me, personally, I'm at a time where I want a TV show to mean something to me, and Mad Men takes care of everything.

I'm looking for a good Mad Men email buddy - someone who will let me rant about my favorite parts, the most disappointing parts, and the parts that made me want to scream with joy and/or agony. I'll be accepting applications in the form of an essay. You wanna be my buddy, you have to explain to me why you think Peggy hasn't left Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Price yet.

...Carter isn't like us...

2010-08-27T13:25:00.002-04:00

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2010/08/carter_snubbed.html?p1=News_links

That article is rubbish.

Jimmy Carter went to N. Korea to get someone, and bring him back to the US. I don't think Carter, from what I know of him, cares about being snubbed, or worries about that type of nonsense. I don't know how, as a country, we voted Jimmy Carter President. That isn't an insult to him, it's an insult to us.

The guy isn't like anyone else in politics, ever. He is such a person of morals and passion and honesty to himself, and he is belittled daily by people who don't like him, and I don't think he cares. Well, Jimmy, I'll help you out there, too - I don't care either.

Carter went to get someone (who doesn't deserve to be "gotten"...stay the frick out of N. Korea, everyone), and he brought him home. The fact that he didn't have to shake hands with a psychotic dictator isn't going to ruin his day.

I don't know the man personally, and I could be wrong, but until he comes out and says, "BY GOSH, I'M SEETHING! I WAS SNUBBED. NOBODY SNUBS JIMMY C! NOBODY!", I'm not going to worry about his well being.

Col'nl Pritchard is projecting - his speculations say a lot more about his own personal values than it does about Carter's.

And yes, I'm prepared to take this all back when at 5:45 pm Carter admits he was, in fact, snubbed and seething about it.

...Dustin Johnson is weird...

2010-08-16T10:07:00.002-04:00

I was on a boat coming home from Long Island when the drama unfolded at Kohler, and Dustin Johnson played himself out of the playoff yesterday afternoon.

I was looking at ESPN scorecenter, and I noticed that Watson & Kaymer were in the clubhouse at -11, while Johnson was getting to 18 at -12, in the lead.

Immediately, like every other golf fan in the world, I was brought to the memory of Johnson's brainless US Open collapse at Pebble Beach, shooting an 82 and blowing a big lead on the last day. I also was thinking about how hard 18 had been all weekend, and not a lot of birdies had happened there, but all he needed was par.

I am not going to criticize his decision to use driver, I think thats a completely personal "feel" type of thing, and if it was feeling good, then so be it.

But I am going to criticize what happened next. The dude needed par to win, and you can read all about what happened, but as a person who was watching the drama unfold via twitter, watching other pros feel for him, and journalists mock him, I thought that there'd be some kind of grey area, once I saw the replay. But I don't think there was.

That course, all weekend, was a display of unusual bunkers - rough cuts of grass meeting sand - a very unusual course for a major, but not for a PGA Championship really, and every mistake was greeted by a really odd look to the green, or odd lie in a surface you're not used to playing in.

I figured when I saw the replay there'd be some confusion as to whether or not this could be a bunker, but I was mistaken. I saw the replay and my first thought was, "jeez, that looks like a bunker to me!"

I understand that he put the ball into a gallery, and that there were people, stands, water bottles, even a turf mat covering that area, but each golfer is given the supplemental rules of golf at the tourney. Each golfer can read on a sheet in the clubhouse, almost explicitly, that this exact situation may occur.

There is a rules official nearby all the time. If he had just asked, it would have been clear. Heck, he didn't even NEED to ground his club, he chose to.

This isn't a situation where I feel bad for him, like if the ball moved after grounding the club, or if a bad lie was brought on by trampled spectator grass..

Johnson, in 2 majors this year, has been caught up in the moment mentally - he is doing the kind of thing we slay other athletes for, and I think we have that right. When Chris Webber called a timeout in the finals, when they didn't have one, he was wrong. When DeSean Jackson spiked the ball before he reached the end zone, when Leon Lett let Beebe strip the ball in the Super Bowl, we all mocked the athlete, and deservedly so.

I'm not saying we should pile on Johnson, b/c I think he clearly has an issue with handling pressure (And for crying out loud, if all you need is par, why in the world are you BOMBING a 4 iron out of a bunker/waste area instead of just trying to lay it up, chip and putt for the win?! And what the deuce happened on that putt for par? He missed it by way more than a pro should miss it by?!

Johnson collapsed, mentally. He isn't a victim of the rules, he's a victim of himself. You can feel bad about it on a human level, but don't feel like the game cheated him, b/c it didn't. This is a great example of how fair Golf really is as a game.

...Bypassing the electoral college...

2010-07-19T17:00:00.003-04:00

I am really, REALLY confused about this proposed bill.

The bill will essentially make it so no matter how an individual state votes, the electoral votes within that state would go towards the candidate who won the National Popular vote. In theory, if all states enacted this legislation, the winner of the National Vote gets all electoral votes in a shutout.

In theory, that's sorta cool.

But in practice, in an environment when BP and Bank of America were given the green light by our Supreme Court to spend as much money necessary and possible in order to anoint the next CEO of America, it is a dangerous thing.

First of all, you'll hear mostly the Lefties, who are in favor of this bill, talk about how this will "make every vote count" and will energize the populace - which may in fact be true. You'll hear right wingers say that that it isn't fair b/c the coasts dominate the number of people in this country, and they can dwarf a "fly over" state in the middle. New York City, for example, will go a long way in swaying the vote, and New York City is going to vote Obama for President against every McCain, Palin, Sanford or Jindal.

If you are able to remove your own political bias, and see through the myths that both sides will create, you're left with this inner conversation and list of questions:

How will this change things?

Well, the answer is we don't really know. Electoral Math is a Science - or - Electoral Science is Math. People get paid a lot of money to determine how to spend the money that dictates the outcomes of elections. If you take TV advertising as the Gold Standard, essentially someone decides, "We are going to advertise in Alabama b/c we think we can win Alabama. We are going to spend 0$ in California, however, b/c the other candidate will win there."

Why does it matter how they spend the money, they want all the votes they can get, right?

Electoral advertising isn't purely about speaking to as many people as possible, its about adding up the potential electoral votes you can get or not get. If you know you're going to lose California and its 55 electoral votes, why waste a single dime there? Find a way to make up the other 55 in a combination of 8 or 9 states - thats how you win.

But I like to look at the National Election #'s and paint a picture!

Well, tough crap. Take my example above, the population of California could be, and likely has, completely forfeited in favor of attempting to secure a collection of smaller states, whose electoral votes could be more powerful than their population #'s.

What I'm trying to say is that adding up the popular vote IN PAST ELECTIONS and using it as a point, "My guy should have won, he got more votes!" is really disingenuous. It's not telling a complete story, its an irrelevant practice using numbers to their own advantage.

So if this bill passes, won't we just cut through all that crap and elect the person we want, as a Nation?

Maybe we will, but I don't want to take that chance. I like the electoral college - there haven't been examples in which a candidate won a particular state, but didn't get the credit for it. That isn't in danger. Voters are confused by the system, but those who don't vote b/c that portion of the system confuses them are not worth pandering to - it is remarkably unfair to pander to them.

So what is your solution, mr. hotpants know it all head?

Listen, if you want to abolish the electoral college, I'll have that conversation seperately, that's NOT what this bill is. This bill is keeping the electoral college there, and then assigning the votes to the candidate who gets the National vote. In practice, if McCain/Palin had more votes than Obama, and if Obama won Massachusetts by 80/20, Massachusetts electoral college votes would go to McCain/Palin.

This would be fine if all 50 states + DC were on board, but the group steering this bill is hoping purely to get just enough of the states to add up to an electoral majority. 270 state electoral votes or so are needed in order to coup this next election. So there is some grey area, a few rounding errors away from the unthinkable.

A candidate could win MA by a landslide, win the National Popular vote by a slim margin, but still not have enough electoral votes to take the cake.

If your problem is with the electoral college system, remove the system. Don't tweak it just enough to give us a potential disaster then Deval Patrick your way out of it with a last minute vote change. Don't try to Hilary your way out of it by acting as if you care about the voice of the voters.

Its about winning, and its cynical.

What are you so worried about? What effect could it have long term?

I can tell you the effect, and I can see it playing out sooner than later. In '08, Hilary and Obama agreed that Michigan & Florida, if they moved up their primaries before NH, would not count towards the Democratic nomination, it was agreed on beforehand. Hilary didn't like the result, she demanded the MI votes count, and fought for it.

In '10, the Democrats in MA fought to allow Deval Patrick to place an appointment in as Kennedy's replacement after his death. In '04, the Democrats fought to strip Romney of that same right if Kerry had become President.

My point is, all of this hemming and hawing is a way that the Democrats see a chance to steal a few elections. Make this about NY and LA, energize the base in Miami, Chicago, Houston, etc - and there is no way that Middle America will be able to overcome the will of the traditionally lefty groups.

That's the Dems goal, and its dishonest and unfair. And that makes me sad. At some point this Law will come back to bite those who voted in favor of it, and they will want to change the rule.

This isn't a law about making the will of the people heard, its a law about being cynical enough to think you can trick voters into thinking they matter - but it's really about the math, the science and the fact that Democrats know they will win if they win battleground CITIES, not States, under this format.

...an additional tube, or pipe, or bag or SOMETHING...

2010-07-16T10:17:00.002-04:00

I have a question, and I don't think it's crazy to ask.

One can assume that the notion of capping this leak in the Gulf was imminent. They knew that was the goal, and the hope.

Taking judgment out of this, we also all knew there was a possibility that the cap would not hold, at least on the first try. But lets say it captured 95% of the oil for 10 hours...only a small % was leaking, and it was very manageable. Or even better, lets say it captured 100% of the oil for even less time, 5 hours, this is my question.

Why haven't they been developing some sort of bag, or tube, or SOMETHING, that would capture oil if the cap were to break. We see images of this capped leak, and it looks awesome, but what if in 3 seconds it pops off?

This reminds me of when you pump up a tire on a bike. The way bike tires work is fairly simple.

1. Unscrew the black cap, and air doesn't leak out

2. Put on the pump and you'll get a quick air leak, but then you start pumping up.

3. When you're done pumping, and you remove the pump nozzle, a small leak happens again, but it stops when the whole pump is removed.

4. You screw on the black cap, for no reason other than cleanliness and a safety precaution.

Why aren't we doing #4 in the gulf?

Why aren't we putting something OVER this cap?

On July 4, 1994, I had the pleasure of assisting in setting off the Marshfield 4th of July fireworks. It was fun. I was there with the big tubes, lighting fuses, watching them launch into the sky from the best vantage point possible.

After it was over, the grizzled vet of fireworks displays inspected the tubes to make sure everything was set off, and he literally was looking into the pipes with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. I am not kidding.

Looking at the image of the capped well reminds me of this dude - we are all standing here looking at it on the HD image capture, staring into the face of this cap that we hope will work, and we seem like we're trusting the people to take all precautions whose lack of taking precaution put us in this place.

I'd be 100% more comfortable if we couldn't see this cap, b/c an additional tube, or pipe, or bag or SOMETHING would be covering it.

Sincerely,

Less Than Cautiously Optimistic This Cap Will Work

...3rd Person...

2010-07-16T08:59:00.005-04:00

I read this about athletes speaking in 3rd person. I've heard Bosh, Wade & James do it in the last week, my initial gut reaction is that this whole situation is too big for any of them, so they disassociate with it, but that's amateur diagnosing at best.

The bottom line is I can't stand that reporters let athletes & celebs get away with this nonsense 3rd person type perspective. In my brain, when I read this clip from Dwyane Wade about the Celtics defense, I think Wade is 100% nuts:

"LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, guys like that understand what Boston's defense was about," Wade said.

Really, who talks like that besides people who are absolutely crazy. I can't think of anyone, actually. Well, athletes. All athletes. They have spent so much of their lives being ripped apart from reality by everyone that I almost can't blame them.

The thing that really kills me though is that Commissioners and those who are supposed to have the sport's best interests in mind don't realize how much of a divisive thing something like this is. I sometimes forget that the psychology involved in interactions, in marketing, in winning people over, is completely forgotten by those in power.

NBA rookies, and rookies in all sports, go through lots of training about how to stay away from Gold Diggers, and how they should wear condoms and not give their money their entourages - but it'd do them some good to give them humility training as well.

Stern condemned LeBron for his "Decision" TV show, but in a very passive manner. I think it'd do Stern good to recognize that "The Decision", speaking in 3rd person, and being not only financially but also emotionally unattached from those who pay your salary is going to be the ultimate downfall of professional sports, someday. But the point is that LeBron, I don't think, has ever been told to slow down, stop doing what you're doing, think about how you are perceived.

We need a Truth Czar in sports. Whether it be in sports reporting, or some kind of other realm. Athletes can earn as much money as we throw at them, but it has to come with a cost, and being accountable for what they say - speaking in 3rd person, for example, is a great start.

Wait a second, a new blog is born. SportsTruthCzar.blogspot.com. I'm starting it. Be ready, folks.

Anyway, this useless rant can be supported by an article I found on www.psychologyofsports.com, read it here: http://www.psychologyofsports.com/couch/couch020201.htm

...Pro athletes don't care about sports...

2010-07-13T12:27:00.002-04:00

I've mentioned this a few times to people, but the 2003 loss in the ALCS at the hands of Aaron Boone and the NY Yankees devastated me. I went into a self proclaimed 24 hour vow of silence, shirking work responsibilities and listening to the radio to make sure someone else was feeling the same pain as me. It was crushing, heartbreaking, horrible.

Then a few days later I realized that was completely insane, and I came back to real life. My love for the Red Sox, and a lot of other professional teams, went more from a personal one to a newly developed business version. I sorta started to get interested in approaching sports from a much different angle, and with my line of work I was able to dive head first into the Darren Rovell CNBC Sports Business side of things.

I am 100% sure that's why I'm so interested in contract situations - even while the game is being played, and the C's are in the middle of what was almost a historic championship run, I'm thinking about how they will retain Kendrick Perkins long term, and more acutely I'm thinking about where LeBron would end up.

I think it's safe to say LeBron was distracted completely by the business side of things - hence his early exit. LeBron is a child. LeBron's situation was honestly a bit terrifying for him. He reminded me of the lead character in Dazed & Confused while he was pitching at his Pony League game the night of the last day of school. He wanted to win & get the hell out of there. While LeBron didn't end up throwing the strikeout to end the game, he certainly did his best to bolt out the outfield fence, while Dan Gilbert was waiting there with a FAH-Q wooden paddle.

LeBron bolted, and Cleveland fans are uproarious. As far as I can tell, there are 5 different categories of those who have an emotion about Lebron.

1. People who don't live in either Cleveland or Miami, but are NBA fans, and are just generally sickened by the way he made his selection and referred to himself in the 3rd person, consistently. I'll come back to this point.

2. People who don't live in either Cleveland or Miami, and are not fans of the NBA, and generally hate it when athletes are rich (despite the fact that they ignorantly pump money into these leagues buy buying merchandise, reading magazine articles, calling Sports Talk stations, etc...) . These folks I don't have time for. Shut up. Yes, other people are rich, get over it.

3. People who live in Cleveland and are genuinely hurt by LeBron's actions, not because he left, but because of the way he left. Bill Simmons has said much about this, and I don't need to expand, but the grandstanding and the decision to pick the prettier city in a fashion like this really could be hurtful to those who haven't gone through the same catharsis I went through in the Fall of '03.

4. People who live in Cleveland and are maniacs who think LeBron should be tethered to his hometown city simply because they think that is how it should be. These are the folks burning jerseys, crying in bars, screaming at the top of their lungs, and threatening LeBron's health. They are not worth talking about, or to.

5. People who live in Miami and are so excited, LeBetard style, that they have the makings of a mega-team.

So within those 5 groups, there are a few things I find really fascinating.

Cleveland has a history of losing. They lose big football games, they lost a football franchise. They lost a few World Series they should have won. They didn't make the NBA Finals despite the best record 2 years in a row. They lose, and the fans know it.

I think the biggest misconception, however, is that LeBron really knows this. Yes, LeBron grew up in Cleveland, but he grew up other-worldly. I am consistently disappointed with pro athletes and their viewpoint on sports. They look at things from a very different place.

Think about LeBron's timeline. He is 25 years old, he was born in 1985. In 1986 & 1987 Cleveland lost heartbreaking football games, Lebron was an infant and a toddler - do those matter to him? No.

When LeBron was all of 8, Mike Jordan and the Bulls swept the Cavs, "The Shot" was something that LeBron probably didn't watch live, and considering he wore #23 up til this upcoming season, I don't think he was pained much by the memory of Jordan dominating his hometown team.

I think back to when I was 8, which included the 1986 World Series and I don't think I stayed up for a single World Series game - and baseball was my life. The pain for LeBron wasn't real there either.

In 1997, the Indians were 2 outs away from a World Series title when Jose Mesa blew it - Lebron was already a Yankee fan by then. Did that pain of a Cleveland loss matter to him? No. You also have to remember he was a Yankee fan when the Indians lost in 1998 to, who else, his beloved Yankees.

By the time "King James" was a Frosh in HS he was the best player in Akron, and his Sophomore year he was Mr. Basketball in Ohio. He was called The Chosen One by Sports Illustrated his Sr. year - he doesn't need other teams, he never did.

He never needed to identify with the masses in Akron, Cleveland or Ohio in general - he is his own mass, his own team.

His choice to rip the hearts out of Cleveland yet again, at first glance, seems to be something seeped in tradition and par for the course for Cleveland, but I think King James has been living in his own world for so long that he has no idea what it means, in context. I do think he actually is blind to the fact that he is part of that Art Modell, Jose Mesa, Michael Jordan and now, LeBron James Mt. Rushmore of Cleveland heartbreak.

Nothing more needs to be said about his egotism, LeBron is a lost cause as a person. Now the question goes purely to the business of sport, and I cannot wait to see how Pat Riley sells this Heat team to Free Agents. Now that's NBA basketball.

...the Best's...

2010-07-12T12:09:00.003-04:00

Here are the top 2 in each sport, in my lifetime, and the grade they got for staying on top in the hearts of the fans who elevated them:

Golf:

1. Tiger - F

2. Phil - A

Hockey:

1. Gretzky - A+

2. Lemieux - A

Baseball:

1. ARod - D-

2. Bonds - F

Basketball:
1. Jordan - A+

2. Lebron - F

Football:

1. Rice - B+

2. L.T - F

There is something wrong with all of this.

...Paul Pierce Is A Free Agent...

2010-06-30T07:50:00.002-04:00

During a regular season game in 2009, I don't know which one, I wrote an email to my Celtics yahoogroup that praised Pierce.

paul is such an awesome celtic. i am so proud to be a fan of his.
he cares so much about winning, its so great. someone else say nice things about pierce. please. he deserves it.

Paul opted out of his contract last night, and now I honestly think the best thing possible is to part ways with #34. I love him as a player, a competitor and as a Captain, but if another team is willing to pay him 90 million for 4 years, there is no logical reason to re-sign him.

I look at his age, his performance, and what the landscape looks like out there, and I think that PP is worth 12-14 million for 3 more years, tops. He is going to get more than that from other teams.

With the Rasheed retirement, and the opportunity to clean up our books after KG's departure next year, it seems irresponsible to give Paul a ton of dough.

I love #34, I don't know what the rules are about retiring a players number, especially one who bolts pretty much only for money (unless he locks up with another max contract guy and goes for a ring), but if he leaves I'll miss him.

Good thing we are in no way related and I am allowed to look at this from a business perspective.

...top 10 Most Influental Songs...

2010-06-27T10:08:00.002-04:00

Here are the top 10 most influential songs, to me, without explination.

10. I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson - DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
9. Sweet Lullaby - Deep Forest
8. Sparks - The Who'
7. Parklife - Blur
6. America - Simon & Garfunkel
5. Airbag - Radiohead
4. Can You Feel The Love Tonight - Elton John
3. Rocket - Smashing Pumpkins
2. Wonderwall - Oasis
1. Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles

...you gotta love...

2010-06-25T12:39:00.003-04:00

You gotta love Environmentalists suing Cape Wind for endangering birds. I am not doubting that Cape Wind may have other motives aside from saving the world one bay at a time - and that money may be one of their motives, but you know what? I don't care.

I am not even sure who is filing the suit, but the bottom line is that even if they told me tomorrow that some birds will be killed by these large wind turbines, I'd be sad, but then i'd grab the plaintiffs by the neck, throw them on a plane, and stuff their faces in the oil-laced beaches of New Orleans and ask them if that is a better alternative for them.

...7 Celtics Off-Season Priorities...

2010-06-21T12:21:00.005-04:00

I think these are the Green's top priorities:

1. Get Paul Pierce's situation figured out

I know I am in the minority who believe that Pierce may not end up in a C's uniform forever. I believe he wants to be a Celtic forever, and I know he wants his #34 up in those rafters, but there is a business reality to this situation.

As Captain, and as the obvious tentpole in the middle of this 3 ring circus, Pierce's situation is a very interesting one. He has 1 year remaining, as a player option, for 21.5 Million. Now is the time that all sports fans say, "why would he leave 21.5 million on the table?" Well, this is why.

He, and his agent, most likely believe a team is out there who is willing to sign him for 4 years, 60 million right now. That is option 1. Leave the C's, go to the Clippers (for example), finish off your career at home, with 60 million fans and 60 million bucks.

Option 2 is to stay with the C's, get your guaranteed 21.5 this year and then hope you can get 3 more years at 13 million (or so) per year. But really? Will the C's value him higher than Rondo? Will he be easy to retain?

I don't think it will be easy, and I think Pierce will test this free-agent market.

2. How hurt is Kendrick Perkins?

His injury could be a long-term issue for the C's. There are major roster holes on the Celtics - it may not feel that way but it will only get multiplied and microscoped over the next few years. We have to build this team back up, and that includes locking up a true big man, which Perkins is. However, with the snowball effect injuries have on big men, it is a bit scary. They best have the most capable Dr's. in sports working on his leg, because he is a big part of this team's future.

3. Will Ray Allen remain in Green?

He had such a roller coaster playoff - it is really unbelievable. I have no idea to be honest about Ray Allen and if he needs to be a Celtic. Part of me says, "yes, absolutely. He is the only man on offense willing to move, continuously. We have to keep him. But then there is the part of me that says if you rely on a jumpshooter, you don't win titles. What teams have won titles relying on a jump shooter? And we relied on him. As Garnett aged, Perkins got hurt, and Rondo was neutralized a bit by Kobe, it was up to Ray to hit his shots. He did in game 2, and he didn't in Game 7. And thats that.

4. Is Rasheed retiring?

The money left over is huge. We lose him, we gain millions. Will he be cooperative and decide in a timely manner, you can almost guarantee he won't. The reason that it is critical this happens quickly is because the amazing Free Agent class has a tremendous potential, and things will happen very quickly.

5. Who is our Backup PG?

I feel this needs to be addressed in the draft. The Free Agent Class at PG is very thin - and given the needs of a lot of teams, I think even landing a Steve Blake type player is a long shot. I don't like the draft, I don't trust the draft, and I don't believe in the draft, but I have no solution here. I know the answer isn't re-upping Nate Robinson, not on this team.

6. We have 6 players, who are the rest going to be?

If we keep Pierce, we have 6 players on contract. If we don't, and if Rasheed retires, we have 4. Garnett, Rondo, Perkins and Glen Davis. If Perkins is hurt for the first 1/2 of the season, we potentially go into this year with 3 players.

The most likely scenario is that Pierce stays, Wallace goes, Perkins can't start the year, and we have 5 guys on our roster. I think it's likely we keep Tony Allen, we pick up 2 rookies in the draft, and 1 guy at Summer League. That is a very porous roster, and Ainge has his work cut out for him.

But remember, when everything was at it's darkest, Ainge pulled off the Ray Allen trade on draft night in June '07, and we were saved.

7. Do we have a coaching staff?
Doc is no fool. Thibadeau moving to Chicago is a huge deal. Doc wanting to go back to Florida, for good reason, and live at home is a big deal. I think that Doc sees the writing on the wall, in many respects. I believe the coaching turntable will spin very soon. Will Doc take over in Orlando? Will McHale and Ainge reunite in Boston? Who will coach this defense? What are we going to look like next year?

Lastly, I'd like to build my dream team, based on assumption that the C's stay under 90 million cap space, and taking into account all I can. (*'s are the deals I am imagining for the player for '10)

PG - Rondo (9 million)

SG - Allen (6 million)

SF - Pierce (*21.5 million)

PF - Garnett (*18.8 million)

C - Perkins (4.4 million)

-----------------------------

Bench - Shaq (4 million)

Bench - Davis (3.3 million)

Bench - Blake (*3.5 million)

Bench - Matt Bonner (1.5 million)

Bench - JJ Redick (5.5 million)

Rookie - who cares (1 million)

Rookie - who cares (.75 million)

...not mourning...

2010-06-18T09:22:00.002-04:00

I am choosing not to mourn this Celtics loss. I am choosing to think it was awesome, instead. I am not a Laker hater, I hold ill-will towards very few things associated with the Lakers, and I am going to continue to love the Boston Celtics until my very last breath on this earth.

I am going to look forward, look ahead, and embrace the NBA Off-season, which is always awesome, and this year is going to be super-awesome, super-incredible and entirely exciting.

The Celtics may be given a huge relief this year in the form of Rasheed retiring. This is news to me, but Doc and KG had interesting words post-game last night.

Rivers heaped praise on Wallace for his efforts and noted it might have been his final NBA game, lending credence to the suggestion that Wallace simply wanted to offer goodbyes to veteran officials Danny Crawford and Joey Crawford.
"He was a warrior," Rivers said. "I don't know if Rasheed will ever play again. You know, he's one of them. I think he took that out on the floor with him. I think he is thinking about retiring, and I thought you could see that in his play. He was dying out there. When he got the cramps and the strains, he was just trying to figure out a way of staying on the floor.
"We had to keep subbing him for one minute and two minutes, and I thought the reason we got up early was because of Rasheed Wallace. We got it low in the post, he started scoring, and I thought what happened was late in the game he got tired and had the injuries and we couldn't go down anymore, and I think that had a huge impact on how we were playing. We had to go away from the post almost because of fatigue. It's the first time all year that you can actually say, at the end of the day, we were old at the end of the game because we didn't have a enough bodies. I thought it hurt us."
Wallace signed a three-year, $19 million contract last offseason. He stands to make $6.3 million if he returns next season and $6.8 million in 2011-12.
Asked about Wallace's future, Kevin Garnett didn't sound optimistic about his return.
"Not a good one ... I see a lot of myself in him and we have a lot of the same ties and a lot of the same characteristics. Both the class of '95 ... so for him to come in and give his thanks and his regards after a loss like this ... it was a difficult night."

The Celtics lose the contract of Scals, and may lose the contract of Sheed, and that opens up a whole heck of a lot of money to go out and build the proper team around Rondo, KG, Perk and Pierce.

I am excited, I am encouraged, I am still feeling really proud, and I'm not mourning.

...the PC is a'comin...

2010-06-17T10:33:00.003-04:00

I am not tech-savvy enough to know if the title of my post is true, but I do know this. Apple and the IBM battle back and forth, it has been that way forever. Their ads attack each other, everyone knows that Apple has had the upper hand for a long long time, but everyone also knows that at one point in their life their interaction with computers was primarily PC-based.

I bought my first iPod in '05, I believe it was, and I have been pretty much apple ever since. Many iPods, an iPhone, 2 or 3 Macbooks, iTunes, iPhoto - I am hooked on Mac products and proud of it.

But everything comes to an end. I was saying yesterday to some friends that the 49ers were on top of the NFL world and it's fans seriously could never imagine fully what the collapse would be like, but if you fast forward to some of the rebuilding years just experienced, you see inadequate QB's, Joe Montana as a spokesperson for one of the all-time ugliest shoes ever, and Bill Walsh buried 6 feet under. Times change.

The latest release of the iPhone 4.0 is, I think the beginning of the end for Apple. We all know that MP3 players existed before the iPod, they just executed theirs better. We all know that music filing programs existed before iTunes, they just did theirs better. We all know that smartphones existed before the iPhone, they just launched it better.

Well here we are at a crossroads - while products are still selling, and will continue to sell, the mystique and charm of Apple products is dwindling, and the iPhone 4.0 has been riddled with problems. These types of problems simply did not exist with earlier tech advances. You cannot underestimate the power of a smooth launch, flawless execution, and a compelling, untainted story. Here are the 5 reasons why I think the iPhone 4.0's execution is a sign of bad things to come, given there were missteps at every level of the process.

1. Manufacturing Suicides - Starting with the actual creation of the product, the environment in which these phones are manufactured is clearly a reckless and dangerous one. 10+ workers have killed themselves due to the extreme pressures put on them by their bosses, the manufacturers, and the working conditions in some of these factories. A product is only as good as how it is built, and there are a lot of underlying issues in Chinese factories, in particular, that are making the creation of goods (not just phones) a difficult process.

2. Lost Phone - In terms of prototype development and the protection afforded Apple's launch products, the well-documented case of the lost iPhone at a California bar is amongst the most egregious errors that Apple has seen from a PR and product launch standpoint. Apple is so careful and so calculated, this type of error isn't a huge issue in itself, but as one of the 5 reasons why this launch was/is a bit of a disaster, it does rank pretty high up there on the gaffe scale.

3. Network problems - We all have watched the launch of major products on Apple's main stage, and have wondered, "imagine if the network crashes?!", well, for Steve Jobs last week it did. And that really does speak to the fact that the phone itself, my phone specifically, is not so good at surfing. It isn't. It is supposed to be, and it claims it is, and to a casual user who may not be frustrated by persistent network clogging, it may not be a big deal. But to someone who has dumped thousands of dollars into a device (monthly charges, people forget about those!), I am fairly consistently disappointed in the phone. The creation of more phones, over-saturation in the marketplace, and a refusal for Apple to address AT&T's huge 3G network issues is just a symptom of the overall Network drama us iPhone'rs are forced to endure on a daily basis.

4. Data charges - I was talking to someone yesterday who tried (see next note) to purchase the iPhone, and she wasn't even aware that she was going to be charged new data fees. This isn't an uncommon thing. Users have no idea what they are about to experience in terms of data charges, and I don't mean that in the cliche sense of the phrase - people literally have no idea how much data they use on a daily basis. Good thing the people charging us do know, exactly, how much we use, and with the addition of streaming Netflix, streaming video chat, and other network clogging applications, Apple & AT&T are going to have a cash windfall, at our expense, when this device hits the network. This problem isn't something people realize yet, but it'll hit them hard when the new charges fall in their laps.

5. Purchase problems - Yesterday folks started to try to buy the phone, available for pre-purchase. Here is one of many articles that sums up the disaster that ensued yesterday morning on pre-purchases. I don't think I need to say more on this one.

Once the design phase was done and complete, it seems like error after error has marred this phone - I get the feeling that the google phones of the world, the Droids and Nexus', are slowly starting to seep out there, and continue to gain momentum.

As iPad users start to ask themselves, "why do I have this thing, again?" and iPhone users start to say, "why am I paying so much to use this thing again?". I think we are at the start of a major shift away from Apple, but we are just at the start. In the meantime, you can call or text me on my iPhone, or email me and I'll respond to you from 1 of 3 Macbooks in my house.

...Heartbroken for Perk...

2010-06-16T19:22:00.002-04:00

Kendrick Perkins is out for the 7th game of the NBA Finals, and it is the most heartbreaking thing I can remember in my local sports career.

Perkins is a very, very, enigmatic NBA player. He turns off local fans by scowling for all 48 minutes of a game, win or lose. He alienates the fans of opposing teams by being the only player willing to be physical to the point of being inappropriate. He can't jump all that well, he can't shoot well. He never gets to the line, he never hits the big shot or makes the huge play.

What he does do, however, is help the team win.

Kendrick is an absolute monster at Center in Boston. He is the best Center in Boston since Robert Parish, with absolutely no exaggeration, and he is going to be out of Game 7 v. LA on a flukey play - a play in which he battled with 2 Lakers under the hoop for a rebound, something that the Celtics are already bad at, now they have to be worse at it in the biggest game of the season.

All Perk has done is play his role - there was a crucial moment in the '08 Season when Perkins was frustrated with Rondo (I believe) because #9 grabbed a rebound that Perk felt was "his". Garnett, during the play, stepped up to Perk and barked at him - a tremendous show of leadership by KG and a huge learning moment for Perk.

So there is an immediate heartbreak in that Perkins has to sit and watch his team either win or lose Game 7 - neither of which will satisfy him, and rightfully so.

But there is a deeper sadness that comes in the form of Perkins losing a long-term extension, that was absolutely coming his way. Rondo is the only player the C's have locked up long-term, and with the advancements on the court that Perkins has made the last few years, I am 100% convinced Ainge was going to lock up Perkins long term.

Perkins has torn MCL and PCL ligaments in his right knee. I went online during the writing of this post in order to read more about long-term implications, and I came across the quote below.

"I don't want anybody to feel sorry for me. It's an important game, it's not about me. It's about winning the title."

Well I feel sorry for the entire team, and I feel sorry for Perkins. This team has gone on an incredible 2 month run that Perkins was a crucial, critical and altogether impossible-to-give-up player at the center of this run, and I cannot bear the thought of Game 7 without his Small, Sad Face. And his defense.

...BP's Billions...

2010-06-14T10:51:00.003-04:00

There is much discussion about what BP should do with its 10.5 Billion Dollar dividend in order to determine what is right, what is fair and what is just. The major complication, as I see it, is that none of the players in this conversation have any kind of real grasp on “right”, “fair”, or “just”.

There is a big time undercurrent (or overcurrent, if that is a word) of sentiment that the money in the world is inherently evil – which always cracks me up because it immediately takes away any personal responsibility for the creation, surplus, lack, or division of money in the world. We all have a stake in this, we are all responsible for the way money is transferred, and ultimately spent.

The perfect example is BP and the many gas stations around the state. I drove by a BP in Maynard and saw people pumping away, and I couldn’t believe it. The lack of personal responsibility in going to a BP station is astounding. As a consumer, our only real course of action against corporations or products we don’t like is to “not”. Not buy, not consume, not share, not talk about, not enjoy…to do “Not” is the only weapon we have against the company.

I don’t know if it was apathy, lack of understanding, lack of caring, or outright ignorance, but when you go to a BP station and fill up your tank you are literally telling BP that you’re behind them, you’re on their side. That’s noble if you believe it, if you are on their side, but if you polled 10 out of 10 people at a BP station they would tell you the spill is horrible, the company is at fault, and something must be done to stop it, immediately.

That’s where personal responsibility comes in – and the lack of it in this country. I have the argument with friends all the time about the Sports. Trust me, this isn’t an NBA post…so don’t worry. But people always say, “Why does so and so have to make 10 million per year!?” Well, the short answer is, they don’t. However, if 10 million is out there to be had, then someone will have it.

How do they get that 10 million? This is how:

1. People buy tickets, the team makes money.

2. People watch TV, advertisers buy advertising on the broadcast b/c of ratings, the team makes money.

3. People buy jerseys, the team makes money.

4. People listen on the radio and read in papers, advertisers buy space, the team makes money.

All 4 of those things, and many others, are 100% controllable by us, the consumers. The only way we can stop Kendrick Perkins from getting a 5 year 50 million dollar extension is to STOP doing the 4 things above. As long as we continue to do those things, we have no backbone in the argument.

Back to BP – as long as we go to the pumps, we have no backbone. Don’t people understand that? And now there is a 10.5 Billion dollar surplus that people all around the globe are going to be mad about. A surplus that rests squarely on our shoulders, and the shoulders of the British where they are a more dominant country. The 10.5 billion came long before the oil started gushing. That 10.5 Billion is there, we created it.

So now what do we do with the surplus, well, we look at our options. And as a side note, at this point, on this spill, Obama’s opinion really doesn’t seem to have any weight, or any kind of real momentum. He has been passive, at best, in this whole thing. Crouch on an oil filled beach all you want with a furrowed brow and a longing for old times look in your eyes Mr. President, until you absolutely demolish BP your actions are that of a corporate magnate, a Titan of Industry, and if that’s your mission, well then cheerio to you, good sir. However, his opinion here is finally saying something…

Option 1 is to divide the dividend up amongst shareholders. They invested in the company, and the company made money, so they get their investment back plus some, based on their agreement. That sounds okay until you realize that part of investing in a giant, negligent Oil Company comes at a cost. Didn’t anyone see “There Will Be Blood”? I mean, wasn’t the whole point of that basically that greed and desperation for power and money comes at a giant cost? There WILL be blood on your hands if that’s your goal?

When you invest in Bigger-Than-Big oil, there will be blood, and the blood is flowing. You cannot expect, as an investor, to just have your money come flowing in while death and destruction flows out. Here are the options as reported by the Times:

A person with direct knowledge of the board’s discussions said Monday that the board was considering three possible options: suspending payment of the dividend for two quarters, paying the dividend in bonus shares or escrowing the amount of the dividend while paying for the cleanup. Under the last option, BP would use cash generated from revenues to pay for the cleanup and would not tap the fund unless it was needed. This option, the person said, could offer some reassurance to both Washington and to shareholders that BP will pay for the cleanup while also trying to accommodate shareholders.

1. Suspend Dividend for 2 Quarters - Oh, good, thats news to us. The ocean will be oil free in 2 quarters. Thank goodness, because I was talking to a turtle the other day whose younger brother has oil in his lungs and eyes and was under the impression that Texas Tea would be clogging up his arteries for 5, or at least 4, quarters.

2. Paying the Dividend in Bonus shares - Sarcasm only works in point 1. Think about this arrogance - they are destroying the earth little by little with no real end in sight and they not only think they are going to pull through it all, but they're going to pull through it all richer than they came into it, and they think shareholders should be excited by that prospect. Who would want bonus shares!?!?!

3. Escrow the Amount of Dividend while paying for the cleanup - I guess this one seems somewhat reasonable, but I don't like the idea that BP is honestly thinking that the cleanup effort won't nudge into their operating dollars and only will effect profit. At what point do they just give up and realize it's all over?

Cuz you know what? Its all over for BP, its all over for oil, and its all over for us. I was off of Long Island swimming this weekend and I was thinking, in the back of my head, that this literally could be the last summer I swim in that water. How quickly will oil fly up the east coast to New York once it rounds Miami? It's gushing. I try to avoid watching the live footage because it is right up there with some of the most horrifying images I have ever seen in my life. No joke.

...iPhone upgrade...

2010-06-08T08:50:00.002-04:00

I don't think people are adequately measuring the effects of a "pay-per-byte" data model that AT&T has unveiled.

Some of the biggest features of the new upgraded phone involve using more data, and this comes on the heels of having users pay a heftier price for data usage.

They are selling us all a bill of goods - the AT&T data network is so clogged already, and it looked like they were going to combat that by giving free wifi in Times Sq, which is a place where the iPhone is basically useless due to high traffic. And they also inserted a pay per byte data model that would charge consumers for using too much.

Those solutions, while sad to the consumer, sounded fair. It makes sense. But then they introduce features like streaming Netflix on the new iPhone, and you have to sit and think about that cost to the user who is paying per byte. And they introduce video conferencing, again, another huge huge data usage tool. Price and traffic, both are driven up with this tool.

Listen, AT&T/Apple are welcome to unveil anything they want, but people need to stop with the jaw dropping on these upgrades that aren't jaw dropping at all. The iPhone has amazed users for a few years now, and there really isn't anything left they can do with this phone to make people go crazy anymore, at least not within reason.

I think of this like the M&M. It's a pretty simple candy, but it's pretty amazingly good. But now you can get the Peanut Butter, Peanut, and a few other "flavors", which are pretty good, but they won't match the excitement you find in a regular old M&M.

We don't need to pretend to be amazed by iPhone anymore, by doing that, we are overlooking the fact that innovation, which was something that the consumer fell in love with with Apple, is giving way 100%, rather than the standard 85%, to the bottom line.

...Three Game 2 Thoughts...

2010-06-07T08:51:00.001-04:00

3 things:

1. By far the saddest sequence of events in the game was when Shelden threw the ball away and Kobe hit the 3, it totally drained the energy out of the big lead. But watch that replay again and realize that the worst part was that the other 4 celtics, after Kobe's shot went through, basically walked away from Shelden, forcing him to throw a second bad pass that Kobe almost drained, which would have been unthinkable.

I like Shelden, but he may have played himself out of the rotation tonight.

2. When you talk about Rondo, and everyone says things about his jump-shooting ability, and how some day he will get that shot, I have the following statement, which is a 2-parter.

Part a) Rondo's poor jump-shooting ability is greatly exaggerated. I agree he can struggle at times, but in the biggest moment of the season he drained a jumper to go up 5 from 3, and he has done that before this season, and in these playoffs. Rondo may not be deadly, but his jump-shooting is no longer a liability, it simply isn't a strength, which is fine.

Part b) If you have the ability to go back in your brain to last year's playoffs, he started to show signs of offensive brilliance with his off the glass english shots and amazing passing, but he took it to another level this season. I 100% believe that same type of advancement will be made this offseason in the form of a more stellar 12-18 foot jump-shooting ability. All-Star starter next year, no question.

3. I was listening to a national radio broadcast on my ride home after the game, and they have this Celtics team wrong. They were saying that there was no way that Rondo could get a triple double every night, and no way Ray Allen would set a record in 3's every night, therefore the Lakers could win 3 of the next 4 or 5 and take the title.

Sure, there is some logic to that, but the reason Ray was 8 of 11 was because Artest neutralized Pierce, which led to easier Allen baskets. The reason Rondo got a triple double was because Kobe got fouls called on him early, which made him hard to focus on doubling off on Rondo and/or flat out covering him.

The reason the C's are good is because they have talent all over the court, and the burden can rest on different players each night.

Gasol, once again, was friggen awesome tonight. But this has been my point: Gasol can be awesome, stellar and otherwise dominant, but if Kobe is out of sync (tonight, foul trouble) it is hard for the Lakers to win.

There is no solution to the C's aside from reasonably taking away the positives of 4 or 5 players, and that is hard, and that is why they are in the Finals. Sure, take away Ray Allen's 8 3's, and force Rondo into a non-triple double night and you're more likely to win, but I bet Pierce drops in 28 points and Garnett gets 11 rebounds that night too...

...oil = housing...

2010-05-26T06:21:00.002-04:00

Just like the housing market 5 years ago, the veil of confidence in our near 100% reliance on oil is starting to fade, quickly. We actually believed the Housing boom was a natural result of momentum, an economic boom in a time where we felt we were invincible, and it came crashing down on us so hard, throwing the entire global economy into tumult, and leaving us with a giant % of the population still unemployed, still wondering how they'll get out from their overwhelming mortgages.

In short, there was no backup plan for the Housing boom - everyone was reaping the benefits without thinking about the consequences.

Oil is the same exact thing. BP, and hundreds of others of companies, are allowed to stick giant tubes into the earth, drag up all the oil they need to as quickly as they possibly can, and it seems that nobody, no entity, no governing body, and certainly not the world's population, asks the following question:

"But what if it all goes wrong?"

Well, it's all going wrong. Today they are going to try to plug up a gushing oil leak with mud and cement. Mud and cement. They are saying it is 70% likely it'll be successful. It is 30% that it won't be, and they have no idea how to fix it.

There really was no consideration taken if things went badly, and they have, and we are all left to deal with the consequences. We all assumed, didn't we, that there would be a backup plan. If the oil pipes leak, or crack, or if a rig blows up, we have a contingency, right?

No, we don't. I didn't know that, did you?

I can't get this scene out of my head: You walk into a grocery story and you are in the milk aisle, and all of a sudden an 8 year old boy with his mom starts throwing all the eggs, smashing all the cartons of milk, spilling cottage cheese on the cereal boxes and spreading mustard all over the deli meat...and the parent looks around at everyone in the supermarket and says, "boy, we sure do have a problem on our hands, don't we!?"

BP is acting like they have now joined the rest of us as victims, and actually, it appears that way. BP is acting like they are only responsible by default - that they are only responsible b/c they are the only ones responsible enough to fix it. Except they can't fix it, either.

I saw someone from the Coast Guard on TV the other night saying that BP was the only group qualified to come up with a solution, but they can't find one. What happened to us? Are you telling me the smartest of our Army Corp. of Engineers cannot takeover with hostility BP's assets, tools and brainpower and find a way to plug this leak?

It leads me to the final conclusion that there is absolutely no solution to this. Oil will gush in perpetuity, until there is no oil left to gush, which, of course, nobody knows when that wlll be. I asked Alison and Wizzy last night if we will be dead by the time oil reaches the beaches of Montauk, Duxbury, Santa Monica, etc...

But I think I'll live to see it. I am starting to completely believe I am going to live to see the time where our oceans are overtaken by this demonic sludge.

All of this leaves me so hostile towards Cape Codders who still are mad about their view being ruined by Cape Wind. The ultimate irony will be when their precious views are "marred" by the amazing view of natural wind power turbines...combined with the fact that they are forced to dip their toes in jet black ocean sludge.

...Potter at Universal, Orlando...

2010-05-25T12:39:00.002-04:00

As many of you know, Universal Studios is opening a major addition to their Orlando Islands of Adventure Theme Park, which is based on the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The addition opens in June to the public, but my mom who is a part of the Travel & Tourism Industry was able to view the theme park in a preview capacity.

While she wasn't able to see and do everything that will be open in June to the public, what she saw sounds eerily like what a "post" would sound like from a first year at Hogwarts to their parents at home...

Check out my mom's email below about her experience. After reading this, I'm pretty sure a November trip will be in order for me & Al...

It was all I could imagine it would be. Just walking through the gate into Hogsmeade it really did look like this:

only everything was closer together. The shops were so much fun, seeing all the merchandise you read about on the shelves… priceless. I bought Pumpkin Juice (which was delicious as I had it for breakfast the next day) Bertie Botts every flavor beans, chocolate frogs and some black licorice for Dad that was supposed to be the clippings from a Chinese man’s beard. The shop with clothing was making a killing as many Potter fans were buying Quidditch jerseys, etc. and the wand shop also had an incredible amount of people looking if not buying. There was a line of folks waiting to see what wand would choose them but I didn’t wait. Lots of stuffed cats and rats and owls for sale. The restaurant was called Hogshead and although not open we could walk through to see the inside and the menu which was loaded with typical English food choices. The tables and chairs were made of heavy, dark wood… very pub-like.
The major ride wasn’t open but it is in within Hogwarts which is at the end of the street and built up on a huge stone ledge and we were able to walk through the ride that started in the greenhouse and went through the school corridors which included the talking pictures in frames. There were a lot of accoutrements to look at as you wove your way through the halls and, at one point, Dumbledore (hologram as opposed to audio animatronics) offers his advice from a balcony in his room. Just before you would get on the ride (which I believe is MOM-like and 3-D) Harry, Ron & Hermione speak to you from a balcony just before using the invisibility cloak. Upon exiting the ride you go through more hallways with newspaper articles that move and more talking portraits. Moaning Myrtle also speaks from the girl’s public convenience!
I would say it’s definitely worth a visit.

...2010 Cape Relay...

2010-05-04T22:08:00.002-04:00

I am not going to do a traditional writeup of the weekend of the Cape Relay - it feels like it'd be too tedious and I honestly don't think I could paste together all the events in any kind of real order, but I do think I owe the weekend some kind of posterity, aside from the flip videos I have stored on the old hard drive.

The Cape Relay for those who don't know, was/is a 12 person relay running race that started in Quincy, MA and went 198 miles (or so) to Provincetown, MA, which ran overnight and without a break.

We threw together a squad that really had 1 common thread - every single person on the team is a great person. Nobody cared how fast anyone could run (I'll get to that later), and some of the people didn't know each other well, and had only met once or twice, or maybe not at all, but that didn't slow our team down at all in any way.

In alphabetical order by first name: Allan MacLean, Alison Fisher, Andy Wurtzel, Brian Cullinan, Jeff Graham, Josh Shea, Kristen Graham, Lauren Epstein, Marc Johnson, Nick Fisher, Rich Sanda & Steve O'Keefe made up the team. If you know any or all of them, you cannot argue that 26 hours in a row with this group, with basically no sleep, is a recipe for awesome awesomeness.

Here are a few things that come to mind that serve as big time highlights of the weekend:

1. The weather was incredible. As a matter of fact, the single biggest "i am not sure if i want to do it ever again" factor is that the weather could not be better than it was. yes, it was a TAD hot on Sunday, but overnight we had temps in the 50s and I, for one, sweat like a pig during my 4.8 mile run at 2:45 AM through Marstons Mills.

2. Running alone at night in the dark, but knowing you are part of a collection of hundreds of teams, is a completely magical experience. You know nobody is around you, and you cannot see anyone, but you know there are at least 175 other people running somewhere within 50 miles of you, and we all have the same goal. I don't know if anyone else got choked up by that thought, but I did.

3. Our team came in 10th. We had zero, literally zero, expectations or thoughts that we'd perform on any kind of real level. But we did. We came in 10th place overall out of nearly 200 teams. That is something I still cannot understand.

4. I am not entirely sure, but I think that every single person ran their 3 legs faster than they had anticipated doing so. I know I broke my goal pace by 2 seconds/mile.

5. The team came together in a really magical way for the last 4 legs of the race. Starting with cheering on Al MacLean, and the ensuing handoff to Steveo, which led to his amazingly grueling run, was really awesome. Steve was the MVP of the weekend, in my opinion. He blasted through his first 2 runs, and then was greeted with not only the most exposed to the sun leg of the whole race, but arguably the most difficult given its 8 (or was it 9?) mile distance. Steve did it all with a smile, kept us entertained and had a great time to boot.

6. Getting 2+ hours of shuteye on the front lawn of Nauset Regional High School was really exciting. We fell asleep with barely anyone in the grass or on the lot, and ended up waking up to a sea of sleeping bags and vans. A crazy irish team talking too loud, a bunch of people looking like they had been through hell, and all of us excited about our final leg to finish off the race. I just can't describe it all.

There were plenty more highlights, there are moments I'll never forget and the pictures and video I have tell a huge story in my brain.

This is what I think I have to end this with, and I'm sorry if it comes off as preachy.

I cannot stress enough how good it feels to set some kind of goal, in this case a physical one, and accomplishing it. Furthermore, I cannot express how gratifying it is to have people around me in my life that enjoy setting and reaching goals with me. Every single person on the team had a great time, and it was because of every other person on the team.

I don't know what miraculous twists of fate occured to all of us that allowed us to land on the same small plot of earth together and become friends, but it is beyond unreasonable that we managed to find each other, not screw it up, and work on working on it together.

Thank you to the Windham Whippets, the 10th place team at the Cape Relay, 2010.

...who could/can win the NBA Finals...

2010-04-26T11:58:00.001-04:00

First, I have to start by saying listening to Reggie Miller talk during broadcasts, and seeing his 30 For 30 on ESPN really leaves me absolutely no question as to why he didn't ever win a title. I don't care how hard he worked or how good he was at shooting - I understand all that it is a given. His sense of entitlement, his warped sense of right and wrong and what is fair and reasonable for an NBA player to expect, is so telling.

He just gave a mini-rant about how bad a call was on Carmelo Anthony - who has earned himself 7 offensive fouls in less than 4 full games. Anthony, on the previous possession grabbed the defensive rebound and threw an elbow he wasn't called for. As he comes down the court, he tries to grab a little extra space by throwing an elbow into the chest of a name/faceless Jazz player, which they basically all are.

Miller then goes on to say the call was unjustified - because of course Miller sympathizes with a "me-first" scoring machine who lives their life and runs their career as if they have the "what it takes" checklist in front of them, and are picking off only the low-hanging fruit. It takes a lot to win, it takes a team and chemistry, and I am realizing the list of teams that can win it this year is so small.

So I'm going to break down each team in the playoffs and judge them purely by if I think they can win it, and why or why not. At the end is my summary if you want to look at that. Essentially, these are my answers if someone from Portland, for example, came up to me and said, "Nick, do you think we can win it all?"

EAST:

Can Cleveland win it all? Nope, they cannot. I was, for 3 years, on the "Lebron is good enough to do it all by himself" bandwagon, but that bandwagon hit a stump, and the Donner party is eating itself here. Lebron is awesome, I can't say it any other way. But this team misses Free throws, they have a coach who simply is in way over his head, and most importantly, the guys around Lebron are not good enough.

You could argue (and I tried doing this the last few years) that Mo Williams would be a difference maker, and he can be, but only like 1 out of every 4 games. Jamison is good, but he is starting to find himself in the Jermaine O'Neal territory where everyone thinks he is good, but he has no resume to prove it. Cleveland can't win it for the same exact reason George Bailey couldn't save the whole town of Bedford Falls by himself - but there is no Kid Brother Harry to save him this time.

Can Orlando win it all? Yep, they can. Best Defensive player in the league, who drives Magic fans nuts with his fouls, but is still super-dominant. I happen to like Van Gundy, and I also really like Rashard Lewis. Jameer Nelson is playing like this is the Atlantic 10, and there is enough of a supporting cast around Dwight to make it happen.

Can Atlanta win it all? Not a chance. Maybe the only coach more inept than Mike Brown, the Hawks are a mini-Nuggets - their brains will prevent them from ever getting out of round 2 as this team is constituted presently.

Can Boston win it all? Yes. They did it before, same veteran leadership, same amazing Point Guard. The only caveat here is that Tony Allen can't be a major part of the rotation. Am I crazy, or did they not win games 2-3 without major Allen contribution? Big 3, stay out of foul trouble.

Can Miami win it all? No. If Wade is a 8.5 out of 10, nobody else on that team is a 5. That team is such a collection of misguided misfits, they really have no clue what matters. And if you feel up to it, check out everything I've ever said about Jermaine O'Neal and then agree with me that he was always the most overrated player in the league.

Can Milwaukee win it all? No. The Bogut injury was like adding a cinderblock to the Titanic - sure it'd help with the sinking but the difference is negligible. I'm interested to see this team age, and they need a Stackhouse replacement eventually, but it could all prove interesting.

Can Charlotte win it all? No, not even worth asking. But I do think Raymond Felton will get a ring someday. Maybe the only current Bobcat who I think that of.

Can Chicago win it all? No. They are almost in a rebuilding year and they are this good. Derick Rose and whoever they sign will be lethal.

WEST:
Can Los Angeles win it all? Yes, they can. You know why they can? Because they have not only Kobe, but they have Gasol (who, in my mind, is a borderline Hall of Famer). Odom and Fisher, at this point, are weighing them down. If Phil Jackson lives in the same neighborhood as Odom, I wouldn't be surprised if Odom has his mailbox knocked off the post by a baseball bat soon. He hates him.

Kobe is next-level dominant and Gasol is still getting better. I can tell you this, though, if the Point Guard Triples (Farmar, Brown, Fisher) are relied on, things will get ugly. Also, if Odom is more than 10% of the responsibility pie - the pie isn't going to go down so good. It'll be like the Pie in Stephen King's Thinner.

Can Dallas win it all? Tough/loaded question. I think they can. As a matter of fact, the 3-1 deficit doesn't change my mind that they can win it.

Carlisle has gone funky in his rotation, something has to give here, but the talent is there. They are very low on my possibility chart, but they have a chance.

Can Denver win it all? No. Not even close. I feel like on my list, even if they win tonight to make it 2-2, they are in the same group with Milwaukee, Chicago and Charlotte. This team is remarkably stupid. Their priorities are so out of whack. At times, Anthony makes me feel like Dumars is back wherever he is thinking, "Well, I shouldn't have taken Darko, but maybe Carmelo isn't my guy...

Also, I think that they were distracted by George Karl, who hopefully recovers famously, but did drag them down a bit by being an unwanted center of attention.

Can Phoenix win it all? Not really - they are the single biggest enigma in this whole tournament. Nash is capable, still, of being a Championship point guard. I Just don't like relying on Dudley and Channing Frye. They can't win it all, but they can be a major

Can Utah win it all? I think they may be able to. Logic says no chance at all - with Okur and Kirilenko being hurt, and they are facing the Nuggets in round 1. But, now it is 3-1, and they look better, and better, and better. Derron Williams is forcing Chauncey into a Time Machine, in both directions. He is making Chauncey look very old, and he is making Chauncey look back and say, "when did Derron steal my game from me?"

Williams is hittine 3's, running the floor, playing defense, etc. Jerry Sloan is a mastermind. I never liked him, I never liked anything about the Jazz, but he just gets his team to play incredible basketball, and the crowd there is outrageously effective. Will the Jazz win it all, I can say with nearly 100% certainty, "NO", but could they? I think they can.

Can San Antonio win it all? Yes. They absolutely can. I am so certain that they can. I am so positive that the unit as constructed may actually be in the best possible position to win it all in the West. Yes, I think they are favorites at this point, 4 games into the playoff.

San Antonio has Tim Duncan. Tim Duncan is arguably the most successful player in the NBA today. However, the key learning about the Spurs is when Tim Duncan has an off game, they still win. They showed me so much fight the other night when they got into a knockdown, drag-out War with the Mavericks, and ended up on the bright side of a bloody battle.

They keep their heads on a swivel, and they have a coach who is just absolutely perfect for that team. Parker, Manu & Duncan are phenomenal, but the presence of Hill, Blair & McDyess cannot be discounted. Ask me today who is going to win it all, and The Spurs are my answer.

Can Portland win it all. No. I don't even like talking about them. I don't hate them, but even with Camby I think they are boring to watch, and they just aren't good enough. Can't that answer be the answer sometimes? "You just aren't good enough..."

Can Oklahoma City win it all? Please don't ask me this question. I am currently in a state of being very irrational.

One thing I know is that you can't fake chemistry. I think I have learned in my life that you don't 100% have to have chemistry to win, but if you try to fake it, it won't work. The only teams with pure chemistry this season, in my estimation, are the Cavaliers (and that is dwindling), the Spurs, the Thunder and possibly the Magic.

But the Thunder's chemistry is in a lab coat, with beakers and bunson burners all over the place. At this point they are mad scientists. Chemistry doesn't just keep people happy, chemistry makes normal players turn into complete badasses. Their bench is so deep, and so badass, and I don't even think they are that physically gifted, or at least NBA-gifted. Jeff Green has turned into a supermachine, a defensive player with the confidence of a Hall of Famer. He is so quietly destroying the Lakers with all the intangibles that I am starting to think he is in his early 30's, and somehow had a Face/Off transplant with Pippen from the mid 90's.

I question every thing about their success, but it is in your face and visible and tangible. Do I care why it is happening so fast, not really - it's too enjoyable.

Can they win it all? They are the 1 team that I would say "No, not really, they can't," but at the same time I'm thinking, "they just might, though."

Quick side note, the thought of a 7 game Spurs v. Thunder series is so compelling to me. Never before in the history of the NBA would there be a series that would be more like watching a puppy (durant) and an old dog (Duncan) battle each other. The old dog would enjoy it for a while, then start to get real grumpy about it, and either give in entirely, or give that one strong bark and bite like old dogs do. Someone would get the message, I just don't know who it is yet.

___________________________________________

Summary of my "who could/can win the NBA Finals...

These teams absolutely can:

Orlando, Boston, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Oklahoma City*

These teams are so close, but can't:

Dallas, Utah

These teams cannot win it:

Cleveland, Atlanta, Miami, Milwaukee, Charlotte, Chicago, Phoenix, Portland

This team deserves a category of its own b/c they are so unlikeable and I want to pretend the GM is reading this and feels bad about being in his own category:
Denver

*admitted irrationality - but look at what they are doing. Do you see what they are doing?

...High School Class of 1995...

2010-04-23T14:24:00.001-04:00

No matter where you live or who you are, i'd love to hear from you, class of '95.

Post your comments to my blog or my facebook, but I'd love to hear what your top 3 or 5 songs that remind you of your Sr. Year in high school....Fall 94 and Spring 95.

I'll post mine later.

...zero sum...

2010-04-12T18:31:00.004-04:00

Today was a really unique day at work - one of those, "I'm so lucky to be doing what I'm doing," kind of days. First of all, my industry is just fun, to be blunt. It's an industry that interests me. I don't think I could ever be a teacher, b/c that doesn't feel as much fun to me. Just like some of my teacher friends, and wife, couldn't ever operate in the world I operate in - not b/c they aren't smart enough or skilled enough - but because it doesn't send their fun-meter rolling.

But I consider myself lucky - I had a series of events from 2001 to the present that sorta leaves me shaking my head as to how I got where I am - not in terms of the Professional ladder, but literally how did I go from almost starting Grad school for an MBA in Higher Education with a concentration in Academic Advising to where I am now, Channel Marketing Associate for New Balance Athletic Shoe?

The details are boring to everyone except me, and that isn't really my point of today. Long story short, we had an all employee meeting today at Agganis Arena at Boston University to review a boatload of items and ideas, and it was energetic and exciting. But the fun part was that we broke into 65 teams of 10-12 or so, and we built bicycles.

We had to answer trivia questions quickly in order to gain chips which, in turn, would get us parts to build kids bikes. At the end, and I'm simplifying, we went back to the main stage area and the kids came on stage who were receiving the bikes - it was so cool to see them come in, know they don't have a new bike, and leave with a new bike we built, and my company paid for. I think that's exciting. All in all we made bikes for 130 kids, and they got a t shirt and shoes. This wasn't for the press, it wasn't for anything except corporate camaraderie and doing good for someone, because we can.

It made me feel good. Then, of course, I negated my good work for the day on my ride home. I was driving and saw a young adult walking down the street about 1/2 mile from my house. I saw him, while I was driving, take a swig out of a water bottle, finish it, and with a big smile on his face, toss it over a fence into a cemetery. Without thinking, I quickly tooted the horn and gave him an arms up, "what the heck are you doing!?".

This isn't meant to be funny, more me pointing a finger at myself and saying, "cool the heck out", but it was clear the kid had some kind of developmental issue, and I had the worst 10 second experience of realizing that, seeing him staring at me in my rear view as I drove away, and looking somewhat pained at his decision to toss the bottle, looking over the fence at it on the grass, looking at me, pacing back and forth.

Thankfully this only lasted for 10 seconds, and hopefully that thought entered and left his brain. My fear though, is the possibility of zero sum that I upset his day for the same period of time that I made a kid feel good about a new bike.

Why can't I just cool out about things.

...The Masters, Day 1...

2010-04-09T09:29:00.002-04:00

There are 5 different stories from the Masters, day 1. Full disclosure, I didn’t watch until about 5:45 until completion, however, I did keep up with scores and saw highlights.

I am going to do these stories in order of how much they get me going.

5. Course conditions: As a golfer, the thought of putting on spikes and carrying a bag 18 holes at Augusta is literally the type of dream you wish for every night before you to go to sleep. As a matter of fact, I am going to wish for that exact dream every night, b/c in dreams it feels real, and that reality will never happen in my life, it just won’t. Augusta is Fenway, Wrigley, Arrowhead, Lambeau, Boston Garden, Madison Square Garden and the Coliseum combined into 1. It is a living history museum of Golf, and it is so perfect I can barely stand to look at it. I feel like I’ll turn to stone.

But the real story of the conditions is how easy the course looked to the players. There were a ton of Eagles, Tiger had 2 for the first time ever in 1 round of the Masters. Some insane putts were made, the drives looked like they were getting closer to the pin than usual, which leads me to believe the tees were up and I think that they even said that this morning on Mike & Mike, which I heard briefly before they launched into 47 straight minutes of commercials.

I love how a tournament gets progressively harder, every day, harder and harder.

4. KJ Choi: I don’t have much to say about him, he isn’t really even that good in Major Tournaments, but yesterday he looked awesome. This is the kind of guy who can avoid essentially 100% of the media attention, and move along briskly. Again, he is #2 on the board after Round 1, but he looked good and looked confident. I can see him lurking, but what do I know?

3. Freddy: He is only 50 years old. I have to keep reminding myself of that. He looks like he is in great shape, he walks like he has a real swagger, he wears no socks, he is the definition of cool. He practiced with Tiger, and I don’t know if you heard his statements, but he talks about Tiger reverentially, but he was quick to point out that he hits like Tiger – which isn’t 100% true but I think Couples is believing it.

He is dominating the Champions Tour – there is something to be said about dominating a lower field in order to keep yourself fresh. Fred Couples is the 2007 New England Patriots – he is ripping apart the Champions Tour purely to prepare himself for this big game, in Augusta.

I am pulling for him real hard. I hate thinking this way after Round 1, but a final grouping of Couples, Woods and Watson is the kind of sporting event that will shut down my brain. I don’t think I can compute that.

2. Tiger: What a spectacle. What a horrible conundrum it is to have loved this man before he became a walking porn shoot. I don’t know what to do with him. I cannot imagine being in the crowd and cheering LOUDER for him – as if he accomplished something else, or went through something he didn’t bring on himself.

I swear to God, if I was in PR for a person, or someone’s agent, and if they told me success and notoriety was their #1 priority, I would go out and there and have them do something horrible. Coming back up the mountain after falling off of it is a great career move.

1. Watson: It is way too premature to make any assumptions, and I know that things are only going to get harder for this guy, but the guts he showed in Turnberry at the ’09 British Open don’t seem to be fading. Everything about this guy is magical – his smile, the teary-eyed appreciation he has for the game. In a time when coverage is dominated by Tiger, it is literally beautiful to see how Watson handles himself and handles the game.

His “aw shucks” approach is such a façade – or at the very least it is his only defense mechanism to what must be an overwhelming sense of “what the hell am I doing out here?!” that he is battling through. Everything, every single thing, was against him in Turnberry and he was betrayed by a fantastic approach shot on the 18^th hole – a shot too good that flew the green and ultimately put him in a position to, dare I say, choke…which he sorta did.

You have to love how he is sponsored by Adams Golf – the Golf Warehouse brand of the Century…you have to love that he is acting like he doesn’t have a competitive streak or competitive nature. I can’t stop daydreaming about what the time since Turnberry has been like.

It reminds me of The Natural – like he expected his career to be over a few years ago and was sorta going through the motions, but late-career success got him refocused and he started to eat a bit better, swing a bit harder, work a little more on success. Everyone around him was probably thinking, “you’re 60, this stuff isn’t real, your success at Turnberry was a fluke.” And maybe they are right, but the fact that, yet again, he put together a fantastic round, for anyone, at any age, at one of the World’s most difficult courses – that means something to me as a sports fan, and a fan of the Good Guy.

...Tiger and Moral Responsibility...

2010-04-08T10:26:00.009-04:00

I am not alone in saying that I like things that are compelling. I like stories that get people interested and get people going on different levels. Take a few examples from last night’s news. The story of the man who tried to light a cigarette on a plane is pretty easy – everyone feels the same way about it (for the most part.)

“He is an idiot, he is a moron, smokers are gross, can’t believe the overreaction, can’t blame them for the overreaction, next story please.” That one is simple. Then you get a story like the Gov. of VA saying we should honor Confederacy, which also is, for the most part, a simple story with simple reactions, even if you fall on different sides, “we should honor them, but honoring them doesn’t recognize slavery, it is insensitive, no it isn’t, it’s a part of our history, etc.”

They can spend hours talking and debating stories like these, and we all do and will, but I find myself looking at the story, quickly forming an opinion, and moving on mentally.

Now the Tiger Woods Nike commercial, which you can find so easily anywhere on the internet at this point, is really fascinating to me.

I know Tiger is a worldwide figure and everyone knew him before the scandal, but being unemployed last year and looking forward to Tiger Thursday’s more than any other day of the week last year really got me fascinated with him as an athlete, and I feel like to a certain extent I locked into him and his mentality.

Throughout that process, I saw Tiger not as a human – Tiger is a marketing vehicle primarily, that is his identity, beyond being a golfer and a champion, I see Tiger as a commodity, and he unfortunately is valued by all in that same way. Second to his financial worth is his astounding accomplishment on the golf course. It is funny that yesterday he fittingly won his 2009 Player of the Year award, which he obviously deserved.

Coming off of injury, his athleticism was challenged to a point that non-golfers and naysayers won’t, and don’t want to, understand. Golf may not be an aerobic sport, but to generate the power and precision he does, his muscles and muscle memory have to be as sharp as any athletes, doing any activity. To lose that edge through and injury, refind it, fine tune it, and win championship tourneys, isn’t easy.

So now we are in a place where we are pretty much “okay” with the scandals – there is nothing about him that we are surprised by – no text messages that we read or voicemails we hear that surprise us anymore. And that is because we honestly see him as a marketing tool and as an extension of a brand. He isn’t a human figure who is incredibly damaged, he is purely a commodity whose value is back on the rise, and Nike is taking full advantage of it.

Do I fault Nike? Not in the least. What is their alternative? They have shareholders, they are beholden to making money, and everyone who is involved in this game knows it. The personal responsibility in reaction to Nike and their use of Tiger is something that consumers, for one reason or another, cannot understand.

You, person out there who may or may not wear Nike Golf products, hit Nike balls, use Tiger clubs, you are the only person who can make any difference in this Tiger Woods world of golf. I would watch the Masters this weekend with or without Tiger, that is something I cannot control. Ratings will be high, but I am not going to punish myself because I think Tiger is a completely remarkable jackass.

But you, who buys a Nike golf ball or purchases a new Nike hybrid to hit off the fairway, you’re the only one who can react to their use of Tiger in commercials, and this new commercial is a wonderful example of how nobody alive, including Tiger himself, really is willing to take Tiger to task for what he did.

What am I condoning in terms of Tiger-shunning? Well, first, I think that the only real way to punish him is not by booing him from afar, or bashing him in a blog. The real way to punish him is to stop buying Gatorade, stop buying Tiger related Nike products, find out what will hurt him the most in the wallet and go after it.

Then again, are you responsible for caring? Not really. You don’t have to care, but I swear to God if I hear you talk about the new Tiger commercial and say anything negative about it – then I see you drinking Gatorade with Tiger on the label, I’ll sock your nose.

Sports are a very enjoyable disease – they are the part of the Behind the Music shows where it looked like fun to be part of the band that was hopelessly devoted to Cocaine, Groupies and 100mph Lifestyle. That is what we love about sports, wild, reckless love and unconditional fervor about our favorite teams and players.

But we have a responsibility, and it isn’t a serious one, but as sports fans we have to hold athletes accountable, if we really want them to be accountable.

My opinion of this new commercial is really that it is an extension of Tiger’s egotistical world in which he will learn nothing, change nothing, be the same person, only this time he’ll do it more quietly. He is a maniac. He is a sex-driven psychopath who can do something in sports I admire to a point where it is irrational. I want to be able to hit a golf ball like him more than anything I can think of. But I think he is a horror to mankind in terms of personality. He is everything bad about athletes, ego, and the cult of celebrity.

His dead father, who would have been horrified and embarrassed by the 2009/2010 Tiger, is forced onto his TV advertisements to sell nothing in particular but Tiger the brand – think about doing that to someone you really love? Imagine taking the worst thing you have ever done in your life, making that thing public, and taking an out of context voice over of your deceased Grandmother who was a saint, and making it sound like she not only forgives you for what you did, but wants you to get rich from it.

That is what Tiger is doing here.

So now it gets back to personal responsibility – a “what can I do about it” kind of reaction.

Well, I don’t really know aside from boycotting his products and specifically Nike Golf. If you aren’t a golfer, just be conscious of what he is promoting and staying away from it. Honestly, that is all you can do, it’s your choice. Would you normally watch the Masters? If the answer is no, then don’t watch this weekend. Would you buy Sports Illustrated in an airport if Tiger wasn’t going to be on the cover after winning this upcoming Sunday? Then don’t buy it now.

The perception of Tiger in the public is the real measurement of how accountable we want to hold him for his actions. Think about where you want to fall on this matrix, the choice is yours, but make sure the way you talk about Tiger over the next week, 3 months, 6 months, and forever until we see genuine change (far from this ad) is consistent with where you plot yourself on this graph. That's where you have to pick up the slack in Moral Responsibility b/c God knows Tiger isn't going to pull his weight.

...top 3 movies of every decade since the 30's...

2010-04-06T16:47:00.004-04:00

This list isn't what I think a film major or film history expert would say - it is more what I would take with me if I could only take 3 movies with me. However, I must be clear that the '00's were painful. I couldn't decide on anything. I just choked, really.

one thing I can say is that I think Apocalypto and United 93 were 2 of the best movies of the decade but I don't want to take those with me b/c Gibson is a doofus and United 93 was really tough.

Also, the 80's will probably drive some people nuts.

30’s
1. Duck Soup
2. King Kong
3. Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs

40’s
1. It’s a Wonderful Life
2. Casablanca
3. Yankee Doodle Dandy

50’s
1. Bridge on the River Kwai
2. Rear Window
3. Shane/All About Eve (tied!)

60’s
1. The Graduate
2. To Kill A Mockingbird
3. Psycho

70’s
1. Chinatown
2. Star Wars
3. Annie Hall

80’s
1. Tootsie
2. Batman
3. Joe v. the Volcano

90’s
1. Shawshank Redemption
2. The Sixth Sense
3. Lion King

00’s
1. Almost Famous
2. Mystic River
3. The Royal Tenenbaums

...The Hyatt...

2010-04-02T08:49:00.002-04:00

Today there is a story on Boston.com about laid off Hyatt workers who are struggling to find new work in the face of these tough economic times. This is a story that you can find in any paper, in any city, and it is a story we’ll continue to see for a long time. People are going to be out of work for good and bad reasons, but mostly bad, for a long long time.

The Hyatt blames these tough economic times for letting go of the hotel workers – there is also no question that the manner these employees were let go is unscrupulous, embarrassing, and altogether sad. There is something about this story, as it keeps bubbling up to the surface, that really irks me.

The Globe, as well as other media outlets, seem to be listless on stories like these. I don’t know if it is political pressure, I don’t know if it is editors that are afraid to say what they want to say, or if it is a situation where journalism has been driven to a point where they feel that their role is to simply take a story, skew it in a direction depending on which way their paper leans, and leave it up to the reader to decipher the real message.

The Globe clearly positions the Hotel workers as victims, which, I think is not an arguable point. The Hyatt, and those who wear the fancy clothes and sit in the cubicles like the one I sit in now, continue to make money. They look at tough economic times and say, “what can I cut in order to maintain my Country Club way of life?”, and immigrant slightly-above minimum wage jobs are their answer. Again, that’s stupid, morally wrong, and offensive.

But what the Globe refuses to do is really take it to the next step. They drive up controversy, rattle the cages of readers, get people excited, then leave us to our own devices. In this city, in this state, people are all too comfortable having a “feeling”. They want to say and feel the morally correct things, but are rarely asked to actually act on that feeling.

What is the action we should be taking? Well, if you really do care, you can actually go out and be vocally angry at the Hyatt. Picket, chant, write, call, whatever it may take. But in the end, you really need to do what you can to take business away from the Hyatt, that is the task. But we all know that’s not something most of us will take our time to do. We will read the Globe, complain about their situation, and if we want to stay downtown or are advising friends on a nice spot, we’d be likely to say, “The Hyatt has a good location.”

The Globe in this case is only partially reporting news. What they are really doing is a creating a mood or a feeling – but not asking us to do anything about that. Is it journalism’s role to make us activists? No, but if you get to the nuts and bolts, what is written here isn’t journalism, it’s purely heart-tugging melodrama, with no real ask of action and no responsibility to any solution.

You want to hurt the Hyatt in Boston? You want to actually follow through with your feelings that these women were wronged in the manner in which they were let go? Your tools are at hyatt.com. Boycott the hotel, their partners, write letters to them.

But, contrary to popular opinion and 2010 journalistic bylaws, reading an article and feeling upset about is not action.

...Most Anticipated Albums...

2010-04-01T14:21:00.000-04:00

Top 10 albums in my lifetime that I anticipated the release of:
10 and 9 are tied…and not that monumental:

Nine Lives by Aerosmith. I was excited about this one, a lot, but I didn’t think it’d be awesome. It wasn’t awesome, but I did go out and buy it almost as soon as it came out to be honest. And the other is Bed by Juliana Hatfield. The first album I could get access to after Only Everything. However, by this time, I had no illusions that Bed would be better than Only Everything, it just wasn’t possible. So I was excited, but not as excited as my top 8:

8. New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Fall, 1996) – REM
Monster was the biggest turnaround album in my life – I didn’t like it at first in the fall of ’94 and it grew, by the summer of ’95, to be a powerful force in my summer. I still listen to it a lot, it has to be in my top 10 all time album rotations outside of Oasis & The Beatles. I am pretty pumped about the place it ended up having in my music memory. There wait felt like forever between Monster and Hi-Fi, and that was partially because I had a lot of stuff going on in my life from 94 to 95 – powerful moments and memories on both ends of the happy/sad spectrum.

But when Hi-Fi was released, the choice of the Patti Smith collaboration as the single made me very curious what the album was going to be all about. Heading out to the Holyoke Mall with Trav in his Pathfinder is my most memorable anecdote from grabbing this album, and listening it to a few times immediately got me way, way into it. The fact that it was recorded live, around the country in various stadiums and sound checks, is one of the more unique aspects and certainly helped it stand out in my own mind.

This album, with the exception of #1 on my list, is the only one I think could rival or beat its predecessor. Hi-Fi is aging very well, much better than almost all of REM’s albums, with the possible exception of Monster, but even Out of Time and Automatic have some odd appearances. Bottom line, I was pumped for Hi-Fi.

7. OK Computer (Summer, 1997) – Radiohead
I didn’t really listen to The Bends a ton – at least not before OK Computer came out. But in terms of advancement from Album 2 to Album 3, I don’t think anyone can argue that this was a monumental leap. Paranoid Android came out and it was a great song, and it def. got me excited to look into buying the album…I have a hard time remembering what else jarred me into complete “I NEED THIS” status, but maybe it was friends who heard it and told me it would change the way I think about music and musicians – and it did.

If this was a list of “Top 5 albums that I discussed more than any other albums in my life” it would be #1, with pretty much zero discussion, aside from #1 on this list as a possible close runner up.

6. Fairweather Johnson (Spring, 1996) – Hootie & The Blowfish
Wow. I remember painting my house with my dad in 1994, looking him in the eye and saying this, with 100% certitude: “Hootie’s Cracked Rear View is the best album of all time.” I thought I actually knew that. I thought I had that perspective. No question it was a big one more for me. Song after song was a hit.

Soundtrack of a summer or two – an album that is interwoven into memories of my friendships and good times in high school and even college.

I bought Fairweather Johnson, their follow up album to Cracked Rear View, through BMG Music Service, so it took a while for it to get to me. I listened so gosh darned much, and I wrote a lot of emails to Marc about what it may have meant to us in terms of its place in our musical historical context. I saw Hootie that spring in Columbia, SC, their hometown in a big free concert with my college friend Kirk. I was underwhelmed by the album over time, but that doesn’t diminish how much I couldn’t wait to hear it. Honeyscrew was one of those “always repeat when it’s finished” songs.

5. Beatles Anthology V. 2 (Fall, 1996)
As someone who got into the Beatles in December of 1992, the Winter of 1995 was the first time I was brought into the realm of “something new by the Beatles is coming out, and you can be a part of it” fever. By 1995 I had gone through buying as much Beatles vinyl I could, purchasing cassettes of Beatles albums, then moving on to gathering the entire catalogue on CD.

The miniseries that aired in November and December of 1995 was something I remember sitting in my dorm room at Coker College watching, on my little white TV (which was such a fixture in my entire life from the first days I have memory until about 1996). The miniseries was released in conjunction with CD’s that came out as well. I purchased the 2 disc Volume 1 I think through a CD Columbia House type CD club, and it was good, but nothing earth shattering.

However, the version of “Real Love” that I first heard in the Anthology Volume 2 miniseries was something that I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. This was pre napster, pre lala, pre itunes, pre anything. This was a time in our lives when we had to actually want to hear something, wait for it, hope to hear it on a radio, and buy the album. It was pretty legendary, and honestly could be a big reason why music doesn’t excite me anymore – there is no more anticipation.

When this album was finally released in the Spring of 1996, I wanted it immediately but couldn’t afford it and that pissed me off. Early in the 1996 school year, I remember vividly walking down to the UMass bus stop to take the PVTA to the Hampshire Mall to buy the album at Media Play. It was that important to me. The trip probably took 2.5-3 hours total, but I wouldn’t be denied. “Real Love” is one of those songs that always drives me back to this memory, but also really makes me feel like I have an honest to goodness connection to what it must have felt like to be waiting for Sgt. Pepper, post Revolver.

4. X&Y (Summer, 2005)
My brain goes directly to a memory of a new cell phone I had purchased which could utilize songs as ringtones – something new, remarkable, and exciting. A Rush of Blood to the Head was such an awesome album, and Coldplay had knocked its first 2 albums out of the park. In retrospect, I don’t think X&Y is as good as either of the first 2 albums, but Speed of Sound is as good as any song Coldplay has written.

I found Speed of Sound in the available catalogue of ringtones I could purchase, and I did. I remember loving when my phone rang, b/c it gave me a taste of what the whole song would sound like, and when the single was released, I was able to download it. I don’t remember where I purchased X&Y, it may have been digitally by that point, but I do remember very vividly wanting that album more than any album since the next two I’ll talk about.

As a side note, Coldplay is the band that comes to mind for me as the most painful and sad reminder that I don’t enjoy new music. They were the last “new” band that I connected with, felt moved by their music, and after listening to an album felt like they had more to offer. X&Y was the end of that road, and I hope not forever for me.

3. Be Here Now (Summer, 1997)
Without question, Oasis’ What’s The Story Morning Glory was THE album for me, in my life. THE album. I will always connect this album with a very specific January of ’96 night – home from Coker College, enjoying my time in the house on Green Street, in our room we called the Parlor, and playing this album over & over again. Every single song on Morning Glory connected to me – it was like the album was one of those monsters in Avatar that you jam your ponytail into. Once I was locked in, I was locked in.

I got a full 1.5 years out of this album before any hint of “maybe I’ve heard that song enough” started to pour in. D’You Know What I Mean was the first single, and it was a pretty big anthem for Oasis, and it led nicely into my anticipation of this album. I purchased this either 1 day or 2 days before a trip to Seattle with Trav, and this album was completely my soundtrack. I listened to it on my discman on the plane, and a few times in my parents house in Seattle.

The album itself was something I put on a very high pedestal, and a few of the songs like All Around the World, and Stand By Me are really terrific Oasis songs. They are songs my kids won’t understand or like, and I don’t really care. But the anticipation for this album was really overpowering. They clearly went downhill during and after this album, and the band wasn’t the same in my head or my heart – or on the charts – but they were & are the most important band to me in my lifetime.

2. HIStory (Summer, 1995) – Michael Jackson
I liked Black & White a lot. A LOT. I listened to that album A LOT. A LOT. I listened to it when it got too dark to play basketball with Neil Lansing, and we totally jammed out to it, as much as a few dorks could.

But as HIStory approached, I started to get monumentally fired up. I knew it would be an album that really mattered to me and it was. I wanted this album so badly that during my 40 minute lunch break I sprinted out of my job at MIJA working on an assembly line, drove the 10 minutes to the mall to pick up the CDs, then another 10 minutes back to work, during which I had no time or ability to actually listen to. I just wanted to hold the thing in my hands and know it was my own.

There were 3 or 4 songs on this that completely and totally were sealed into my “this is awesome” vault when I hear them on the radio or when they come up on my iPod’s shuffle setting. This album led to amazing things like Dance Parties and the enhancement of Michael as a larger than life figure, but for the purpose of this list, the single-day dedication I had to going out and getting this album as soon as possible really vaults it into my pantheon of most anticipated.

1. Mellon Collie & The Inifinite Sadness (Fall, 1995) – The Smashing Pumpkins
This appropriately titled album was a behemoth. A fixture for myself and Greg during our years at UMass together, and beyond. Every once in a while we still exchange notes about some of these songs, and how big they were. If you were friends with me during this time, it was a given that you had this album. This album is noteworthy in terms of anticipation in 3 parts:
a) Siamese Dream, the predecessor to Mellon Collie, set the bar so unreasonably high for SP, that I couldn’t even imagine an album living up to that potential.
b) I was living in Hartsville, SC the day this album came out, and I was missing all of my friends a lot. A huge amount. No band tied me together with my best friends like The Smashing Pumpkins did. I went with 2 of my friends, one of which was kicked out of school for too much drug use, the other is someone I still keep in touch with, but we drove to the Florence Mall and I bought this double disc set at BYE or one of those chains, maybe Strawberries. On the ride home, it was immediately a huge, huge pleasant surprise.
c) Going back to point (a), this album can easily be argued was better than the one before it. The anticipation I felt for it really was overwhelmed by the actual enjoyment I had listening to it. It is a remarkable album and a remarkable achievement, I think.

Something has to click for me in order for me to be excited about any album release, I don’t know what it will be, but I literally cannot imagine this happening again my life. I know it was a function of my age, and most of these albums fall within the same few year span, but this is just how it is.

Want these shoes?

2010-03-31T15:57:00.002-04:00

If anyone has a mom or dad or aunt or uncle or friend who is a Men's Size 9.5, or a Women's size 7, I have these 2 shoes available. Very comfortable, not very flashy.

Men's Training

Women's Training

Email me if you are interested.

...obama and his gut...

2010-03-31T12:36:00.002-04:00

Obama is following his gut, and I like it. I always, always, always said (hence my support of Gen. Wesley Clark) that I don't even really care if the politics of a politician bowl me over, I just want to feel like the priority in his or her mind is to do the right thing. With no qualifications, and no explanations. That is what made me balk at voting for Clinton in '96...it wasn't an easy decision.

Obama, however, seems to be turning the corner. The 'West Wing' TV series mirroring real life thing is coming up again. Just last night I saw the episode on which Bartlet's psychiatrist said to him, and I'm really paraphrasing, "Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and won the civil war. He did that even though he may have risked losing half the country. You [Jed] don't do something because you're afraid you'll lose electoral votes in Michigan."

Well, today Obama looked straight in the eyes of environmentalists and said, "you make good points, I respect you, but I cannot blindly follow the path to the left on this one. The other path will get me where I want to go a bit more quickly and safely."

Or, in his own words,

This is not a decision that I’ve made lightly,” the president said in prepared remarks in a speech on energy security. “But the bottom line is this: given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth, produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we’re going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.

It is a risk. It may cost him votes. It pisses off people who got him in office, but this reminds me so clearly of the Cape Wind Farm project going on now, which had awesome news today, look it up. I've written about this before, but the Wampanoag's are claiming they are upset b/c the serenity of their land will be spoiled visually by wind turbines - yet they fail to realize that the serenity of their land will be threatened by polar ice caps and Global devastation if we don't care of things now.

Obama is saying, very clearly, that long-term stability in this environment is created by reducing our dependence on foreign oil - using the oil we have here in conjunction with other resources.

Personally, what do I know? Do I like the sound of drilling for oil off the coast of Mexico? No, but I have no idea why I don't like the sound of it. Environmentalists are environmentalists...if someone told me they were going to drill for oil at the 50 yard line of Gillette Stadium I'd be upset, sure, but that doesn't mean my feelings should be taken into account.

As Toby said last night on the 'West Wing', in regards to a hypothetical verbal assault on Islamic Fanatics..."They'll like us when we win." Well, you know what Barack, they'll like you when you win, and when in 50 years we realize we are destroying this planet and your actions are the first Real Presidential step in putting a halt to that destruction.

...Sandy Bullock...

2010-03-31T08:51:00.002-04:00

On Oscar night, while Bullock was winning the Academy Award for Best Actress, I said to my family, "She has had a crazy, crazy personal life..." This was before the Jesse James infidelity nonsense came about. Check out some of the highlights of her life, prior to her apparently marrying a cheating Neo-Nazi.

Now check out her husband's life as well. Neither of them have been a walk in the park. The difference is, Bullock's issues seem to really be just circumstantial - she always was the victim. James is clearly a joke. I don't know what attracts women to men like him, but I also don't know what attracts men to a lot of other types of women (ie, James' other wife, a porn star).

I have no point for this post other than these facts:
1. Bullock cannot stay out of the way of weird crazy crap, her fault or not her fault.
2. You can't marry someone who proudly boasts they are a relative of the outlaw Jesse James. In addition, you can't marry someone who proudly boasts they are a relative of Jesse James when, in fact, they aren't even a relative.
3. If your husband married a porn star, and had a custody battle with that porn star, things probably aren't going to end well.

None of those things are breaking news. I just find it all interesting. At the same time, I don't care.

..positive news stories...

2010-03-25T14:51:00.003-04:00

I am going to post 3 PSN's a day, or a week, or some days of some weeks. Point is, I am going to find positive news stories and post them here. 1 National, 1 Local, 1 Global. Thats my goal, at least.

National comes out of Wisconsin, an awesome, awesome way to save some bucks and really make it happen, by not doing much at all. Awesome.

The local story really is right in my emotional wheelhouse. I don't know what kind of person I am, I have never been really tested, but at the same time, I hope I am this kind of person. I don't expect anyone to do this, and I don't hold it against people who wouldn't, or say they can't, but real forgiveness is pretty much the most amazing trait you can have as an individual, and I really hope everyone ends up better for this. Won't they? I'd love to follow up on this story someday, but I just have a feeling its going to work out.

And finally, this Global story pumps me up. Essentially, Russia and the US are working towards diminishing nuclear weaponry. I'd normally be skeptical, but I like this quote:

Arms control proponents hailed the progress. Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, called it “the first truly post-cold-war nuclear arms reduction treaty.” Richard Burt, a former chief Start negotiator who now heads a disarmament advocacy group called Global Zero, said that the two presidents 'took a major step toward achieving their goal of global zero.

Anyone else really like the sound of "global zero"? I think that's a great phrase.

...quick NBA Eastern Conference Playoff Prediction...

2010-03-25T10:29:00.003-04:00

ROUND ONE:
1. Cleveland
8. Toronto
> for the second year in a row, cleveland will sweep its round 1 opponent. I have zero doubt in my mind on that.

4. Atlanta
5. Milwaukee
> This is an incredibly intriguing matchup series. The Bucks are a formidable home team, winning 8 in a row before losing last night for no good reason to the 76ers...
They are a unique story, but at this point I have trouble thinking Atlanta will have any issues dispatching them quickly. I think it'll be a 4-1 series, but good for the Bucks.

3. Boston
6. Charlotte
> Literally the 1 team in the E. Conference playoffs that I think will give the C's zero trouble. However, Raymond Felton annoys the Celtics to no end - he is someone they should go and get, b/c someday he will make us pay big time. I don't think he'll alter a series, but he just brings his A game to the c's every night. 4-1 or 4-2 Boston.

2. Orlando
7. Miami
> I am sorta tired of Miami. I want Wade to go elsewhere and let this franchise die in peace. Their title was so blah, the Shaq era was weird, there's just something about their shiny uniforms that bothers me. Wade is awesome, but he won't be able to overcome the Magic all alone. Jermaine O'Neal is destined to disappoint anyone who roots for them. I think Wade can alter 1 game, at the most. Magic 4-1

ROUND TWO:
1. Cleveland
4. Atlanta
> An upset possible here? No. It was about this time last year when I went into full on "THIS IS LEBRON'S TIME!" mode, and I don't have the energy to shout it again. Do I still feel that way? Yes, 100%. Do I have the energy? No. I do know that Varajao, someone who I couldn't stand last year, will give the mentally inadequate Hawks team fits. I predict 1-2 techs per game from the Hawks coming directly as a result of Andy V. actions. The Hawks can't handle this stacked Cavs roster. Cleveland in 5.

2. Orlando
3. Boston
> The highlight of the entire tournament here, I think. Listen, I'm not a homer, I don't want to be one, the concept of "sports atheism" is something I am really intrigued by and I need to give it more thought. But let me say this, I think Boston can pull this off in 7 grueling games. Perkins and Rasheed (yes, Rasheed) are the only big man tandem in all of basketball who I think can handle (yes, handle) Dwight Howard. The supporting cast in Orlando is not as good as last year, and don't give me Vince this or Vince that. Rajon Rondo is the key - who the heck knows how he'll play in Rounds 1 & 2, but he can potentially exploit his matchup to a degree we haven't seen since Tony Parker made the Gibson/Snow tandem in Cleveland in '07 look like buffoons. I don't think Jameer is where he used to be, and they are easing him back Rondo is on another level at this point. Celtics in 7. If Rondo is a headcase in Round 1, I predict an easy 5 gamer for Orlando. All hinges on #9.

CONFERENCE FINALS:
1. Cleveland
3. Boston
I have no idea which Cleveland team will show up. I can guarantee you this: by the time this series rolls around, we will all be 100% convinced that Cleveland will win it, easily. Kinda like how we were convinced they'd beat Orlando in 5 or 6, instead they disappeared in the Conf. Finals last year and Dwight & Co. had a field day, winning in 6 awesome games and going to the finals. Orlando was a bad 4th quarter away from a 4-1 series win over Cleveland...how can that be?

The matchups tell you Cleveland is better - and they are. But I still don't get why the national press (TNT, ESPN, ABC) refuses to recognize that Mike Brown has no clue what he is doing, other than his impeccable taste in eyeglass frames.

Boston can win this series if Doc is on his A game, and the team wins at home. Win at home. Here is the matrix for how Boston wins this series:
1. Cleveland's only loss in the Atlanta series will be Mike Brown's fault
2. Boston wins both home games v. Charlotte, and Rondo plays smart against Felton
3. Boston may lose 1 game in Boston v. Orlando, but that is all. If they manage to lose more than 1, but still win the series, they have no shot v. Cleveland

If those 3 things happen, I predict Boston in 7. If one of those 3 things doesn't happen - OR - if Rondo is a psycho like last year v. Chicago in Round 1, I predict the Cavs in 5 or 6 ...

Keep in mind, if the Rondo is a psycho drama plays out, I predict it'll be Cleveland V. Orlando and Cleveland will prevail easily, maybe in 5.

Tomorrow or tonight I'll put together some W. Conference stuff...I'll also make amendments once the seeds are finalized.

...McDonalds...

2010-03-22T10:00:00.002-04:00

Maybe I'm being too picky, but I cannot understand why people like Michelle Wie, Michael Jordan and Dwight Howard endorse McDonalds. Yes, money. I know.

But it isn't like they are taking ANY endorsement deals they can find. I understand being aligned with a brand like McDonalds is good from an exposure standpoint, they are huge, a mega-global corporation, a beast.

But the thing that really kills me is the thought of Wie, for example, and her agent in a meeting in McDonald's HQ, in some fancy corporate office, watching the VP of Global Marketing or whatever give his or her speech on where McDonalds is heading in 5, 10, 15 years...

How they are on the "eco" trend - everything organic and recycled, etc. What they really mean by that is that their cups will be made out of recycled rice patties or whatever, and they'll offer an organic coffee with beans grown in Portland, OR...but they will still offer, and dominate the market in, some of the worlds most unhealthy and damaging foods.

I don't fault anyone for eating it, I love the friggen taste of a greasy McDonalds cheeseburger (are you with me? I mean seriously, is it not the greatest non-dessert taste of all time?)...I don't even blame anyone really for being a part of their endorsement program. But Wie & Dwight Howard are physical specimen who obviously pay attention to what they eat, probably work out literally thousands to millions of times more (from a % standpoint) than the average McDonalds-goer.

My point is this: If Wie and Howard are representing McDonalds in order to make millions, get more exposure, and increase their bank accounts for future generations of Wie's and Howard's, then I'm all for it.

If they were somehow woo'd by the VP Of Marketing telling them they will be the healthiest fast food company by 2030 - then I'm a bit embarrassed.

On a side note, wouldn't it be cool if Wie & Howard got married. Michelle Wie-Howard.
Those would be tall children.

...But did we? Really???

2010-03-22T09:36:00.002-04:00

Listen,

I'm not going to say I know the in's and out's of this health care legislation - I am not an expert and I really don't want to be. I want to golf more, hang out with my wife and family and friends more, and watch movies and fun sports. Thats honestly what I want out of life, things beyond that are filler, trivial filler. And I'm lucky for that, exceedingly lucky.

The Health Care legislation that passed is not a Gov't run Health Care plan. It's a semi-mandatory "you must have insurance" plan that penalizes people who don't have it, but at the same time, rewards people who do by closing loopholes and minimizing the number of restrictions. Seems like a fair trade off. Doesn't it?

The real advances in Health Care, like every real advancement that will come in this country (and this world) will be made when we recognize that Campaign Contributions and special interest groups should have no place in Gov't.

The majority of Americans embrace the notion of Freedom of Religion - they really do. The far right, and the far left, would have you believe otherwise. The far right tells us that we are failing and dying as a country b/c we have lost hold of our Christian values. The far left tells us that our Christian values are exactly what are killing us, and we have to ensure that nobody, anywhere, speaks a word about faith.

Both are stupid notions. Benjamin Franklin was in the top 5 most crucial people who started this country, and he wasn't religious. John Adams was in the top 5 most crucial and he was personally religious. Your religious leaning has nothing to do with anything, and I think both the left and the right know that.

The new religion - and the new monster that must have legislation protect us from it - are Campaign Contributions. 150 years from now, the US is going to look back at this time - a time where we have a legislation that comes to an absolute standstill for such a long time during a crucial period of crisis - and they are going to say, "what was wrong with those people?"

The answer is so clearly that those making the decisions have their strings pulled by various groups with seemingly neverending pocketbooks...those groups don't want a bill passed, or do want a bill passed...they don't want a candidate in office or do want a candidate in office, and everything becomes stagnant.

Its so unnatural - the last 6-8 months have been such stagnation due to Lobbyists and big, giant money interests that we, as a country, actually are in a place where dynamic, monumental, holy-shit type of legislation is passed, and the common reaction is "we are all gonna die."

On the House floor, Democrats were heard chanting, "YES WE DID, YES WE DID..." An unknown Republican (how do they know he was Republican) yelled, "BABY KILLER" at John Boehner ... are these really acts of civilized people doing important work?

I'll end with this:
Our Congress speaks about their constituencies, and they say it with such a smirk, b/c they know their constituencies are NOT the people who live in their districts or states - and they are NOT the people who voted them in with ballots...their constituents are the companies and group who lined their campaign war chests, and continue to do the same. They do not answer to us, that is why they chant things on the house floor, that is why they yell baby killer - these are not actions of proud Americans - most Americans are understated people, who do not want to yell in someone's face...

Congress doesn't want to reflect the Americans in their states, towns and districts, they want to reflect their donors. They want to reflect American corporations, they want to reflect victory and Power, and this Health Care bill, while most likely something that people who need it most will benefit from, is purely a reflection of a period of unparalleled greed, corruption and egomania that was reserved for shit in our History books...

...the perfect non-sports trade...

2010-03-16T13:40:00.000-04:00

There are really interesting trades that happen in sports every year – some teams win, some teams lose…sometimes, every once in a while, both teams can look back and think, "you know what, that trade actually worked for both of us."

I think about the Chargers/Giants trade of Eli for Rivers. It's hard to say who got the better end of that deal, b/c the Giants "won" a super bowl and the Chargers have been very good under Rivers for a very long time. I think both teams, however, would agree that they wouldn't want the other player as their QB.

I think back to a trade that happened in my life, not related to sports, that fits into the, "It just had to be that way" category…neither of us regret the deal, and both of us recognize what we sacrificed in the short term, but how we were richer for it.

At some point in 1993, I was over Trav's house and we were listening to a new CD he had – which was The Beatles Past Masters, I believe it was Volume 2, but maybe Volume 1. This is not so much a Greatest Hits as it was a filler CD – a CD created for American audiences to cover the gaps that had been left by the original CD releases of the other albums. Some songs appeared on regular EP's in the 60's in America, but not on the CD version of those releases in the 80's and 90's.

The songs were all great, all phenomenal, and for me, starting my Beatles collection, I needed these songs. Trav liked the Beatles, and he enjoyed listening, but I realized this CD wasn't going to change his life like it would eventually change mine.

But what did I have to offer? Looking back, you can say that he got the better end of the deal - and I can assure you that I see the value in Pearl Jam's debut album, "Ten", as much as anyone, but at the time, the price was right.

A 1 for 1 swap that ended up being as influential to him (I know he listened to "Black" probably 800 times a year) as it was for me (I likely listened to my Past Masters CD the same amount). The swap was an even 1 for 1 CD swap, unheard of in the current times of "Can I burn that?" But this was before burning – when copying a cd to tape was a messy fiasco that required an additional purchase, a working cd to tape recorder, and the kind of wherewithal that a 10^th grader doesn't possess.

I don't regret the trade for a minute, at some point in the mid 90's I repurchased Pearl Jam's 'Ten', and Trav also had equal opportunity to purchase the Past Masters collection for himself…but it wasn't about the long term success or failure of the trade, it was about the immediate impact that music had on both of us, and how we did what needed to be done. The perfect trade.

...Top 10 Movies of 2009...

2010-03-14T21:13:00.002-04:00

Here are my top 10 of 2009.
* All that means is I saw it & I know it was eligible for any of the 2010 Academy Awards.

10. Avatar
9. Princess & The Frog
8. Star Trek
7. Up in the Air
6. District 9
5. The Hurt Locker
4. Coraline
3. Inglorious Basterds
2. The Cove
1. Up!

Do with that what you will.

..State of the C's...

2010-03-11T10:56:00.001-05:00

The hometown c's got boo'ed last night. I don't boo, but this was actually a time where I felt it was sorta deserved.

I normally don't have a problem with Doc, I think he gets the most out of his players, and I am not smart enough to comment on his playcalling, etc.

But this really irked me, from Celtics Twitter:
Doc: "We were awful tonight. I thought the first 7-8 minutes we had great energy. But our lack of offense is affecting how we play defense."

I am not sure how to react to that. At the 6 minute mark, I said to Andy the following words, "look at the score [12 or 13 to 6, Grizzlies] - we are going to be lucky to get 12 points this quarter." That was at the 6 minute mark. Given they scored 12 in the quarter, and were down by 15 at the end of the first 12 minutes, you can imagine that the next 1-2 minutes following the 1/2 way mark did not mark some significant energy change.

Doc is/was flat out wrong. I know I am nitpicking, but there was no energy from the team all night. They were out-athleticized.

I said to Andy last night at dinner also that the things we are praising Garnett for is demeaning to Garnett. It is like when you are sick, and you can't eat for 3 days, and then you get incredibly pumped when you are able to down a 1/2 slice of toast. Garnett is nibbling at toast right now, and we are patting him on the rear end for it.

He has aged 6 season in the last 2 years. Show someone game film of Kevin McHale from 82, then show them 88 game footage, and the style of play is what Garnett has managed to downgrade to in just 2 seasons.

I am not unappreciative, I really am not. I think his time has been amazing here, but it is either the end of his season, or the end of the road entirely, I can't figure it out.

This is what I hope happened last night. I actually imagined this last night as I was going to sleep.

After the game, Ainge calmly walks through the Locker Room, talks to Doc. He and Doc share a "what the eff is going on?" moment, but neither of them are accusatory. They close the door, chat about how difficult things are going to be in terms of integrating Nate and Finley, how the starting unit seems to have lost fire - how Rondo may be taking on too much of the load offensively, and Perkins is forced to take too much of it defensively. They talk about Rasheed and how his place on the team is completely up in the air, and they ponder the future.

Ainge leaves the Garden and thinks about the future on his ride home. Rondo is the C's point guard for the next 5 seasons. Perkins has to be the C's center for the next 5 as well. Signing Perkins this offseason to an extension is the only thing that matters. Ainge also starts to think about what can be done with KG. He knows that next year may be his last as a Celtic - as he will be a valuable expiring contract in the 11/12 season, and he is not a necessary component. He knows that Rasheed is in the same boat, and knows he can work around the 6.5+ million per he will get the next 2 years.

Signing Perkins and getting creative with another player is of the utmost importance.

Secretly, he and Pierce are talking about the probability and likelihood that next year will be his last. 21 Million player option will be picked up, but Ainge isn't going to entertain the idea of an extension for a body and a player that is simply beaten down. Years and years of service to a horrible team in a city that underappreciated him is taking a toll, and his potential Hall of Fame career will likely end after next year. It's early, but signing a 7 or 8 million extension is demeaning, and the thought of going to another team would literally be overwhelming.

So for the 11/12 season you have on your roster, given a Perkins long term extension and a Garnett expiring contract dump:

PG - Rondo

C - Perkins

Bench - Rasheed

1/2 season Bench or Starting PF - Garnett

It is a 'reset button' type of year, but let me say this. I am willing to endure a 10/11 season in which we are a 5 seed, and get knocked out in round 2 by cleveland or whatever...but position ourselves for a very bright future. We potentially could have STARTING all stars in Rondo and Perkins by 11/12, and build the team around those guys. It is how it can be. I am optimistic that Ainge has set it up this way.

asd